is it possibe to delete manually the content of the retention hold library?

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is it possibe to delete manually the content of the retention hold library?

Attila Dob 95

Dear All!

Background: I used to have a retention policy that did not let delete anyting.

So as a result 66% of my 1TB OneDrive is consumed by retention hold library. Is it possible somehow to manually clear it out?

Appreciate any ideas!

Regards, Attila

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Xyza Xue_MSFT 30,176 Microsoft External Staff

Hi @Attila Dob ,

Thank you for posting in this community.

No, it is not possible to manually clear out the retention hold library. The retention hold library is a hidden system location that is automatically created by SharePoint and OneDrive to store files that need to be retained for compliance reasons. It is not supported to edit, delete, or move these automatically retained files yourself.

Unless, Excluding your OneDrive for Business site collection from the Retention policy and post the removal, you can proceed for the deletion of content in the preservation hold library. Reference: How to Delete Files from the Preservation Hold Library in SharePoint Online? - SharePoint Diary

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Attila Dob 95 Reputation points

2024-05-24T04:56:28.6766667+00:00

Hi Haoyan,

In the meantime the retention policy was deleted successfully. However even 48 hours later nothing can be deleted, because error message says that retention policy prevents it.

so I tried to empty the preservation hold library with PowerShell, but did not succeed. The last row in hungarian says the list can not be deleted because a retention policy is applied to the content.

Interestingly, the get-retention command did not find anything at the same time

Maybe any more ideas?

Thanks, Attila
Xyza Xue_MSFT 30,176 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-05-24T06:14:09.4133333+00:00
Select the Run Tests: Invalid Retention or grace eDiscovery Hold button to populate the associated test in the Microsoft 365 admin center: Run Tests: Invalid Retention or grace eDiscovery Hold

In the Run diagnostics section, either type or copy and paste the URL of the SharePoint or OneDrive site that you want to delete.

Select Run Tests.

If the test finds an invalid retention policy that might be blocking the deletion, you can choose to remove the policy.
Attila Dob 95 Reputation points

2024-05-24T06:32:23.34+00:00

Thank you for your quick response

Running the test does not find any invalid policy, the result is only saying that my drive is full and I should increase my quota

Maybe do you know how to run this test to find Valid policy? Which theoretically I dont have, but when trying to delete something it says that a policy prevents.

Because I tried to run the test simply changing Invalid word to Valid, but it gave absolutely no result

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is it possibe to delete manually the content of the retention hold library?

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