Couple of questions about in-place archive in Office 365

Question

Hi guys,

A couple of questions arose and I hope someone would be able to clarify them for me.
Scenario 1. A user with Exchange Online 1 license and in-place archiving enabled left a company and their mailbox was converted to shared. What happens to in-place archived emails? Are they retained with the mailbox or gone?
Scenario 2. A user with Exchange Online 1 license and in-place archiving enabled and wants in-place upgrade to be disabled. What happens to in-place archived emails?

Thanks.

Answer 1

@Cloud_Geek_82

Scenario 1: Here are detailed information about it:

After converting a user mailbox to shared mailbox(Without removing license), I can see the "In-Place Archive" exist for this mailbox.

Scenario 2: Data could be kept for 30 days.

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Answer 2

1) They are retained, but you are effectively in a license violation unless the mailbox is licensed with Exchange Online Plan 1 or equivalent. And there's not telling what will happen when Microsoft eventually starts enforcing licensing requirements, if you need the data - don't risk it and license the mailbox.
2) If you disable the online archive, any messages within it are lost - there is no automatic process to move them back to the "primary" mailbox. You will need to do so manually, or via some EWS-based script (here's a sample one: https://github.com/David-Barrett-MS/PowerShell-EWS-Scripts/blob/master/Legacy/Merge-MailboxFolder.ps1)

Answer 3

Thanks @KyleXu-MSFT