I can’t delete items in Preservation Hold Library and my OneDrive is full

Question

I have a lot of unwanted old simulation files stored in my OneDrive that are now in the Preservation Hold Library. These files are consuming almost all of my storage (around 99%). I want to clean up my OneDrive by permanently removing these items from the Preservation Hold Library, but I am unable to delete them.

Could you please advise:

What permissions or role I need to delete items from the Preservation Hold Library?

What steps I should follow, or which admin (e.g., SharePoint/Compliance/Microsoft Purview admin) in my organization can do this for me?

Thank you.

Answer 1

If items you delete end up in the Preservation Hold Library, this is due to a retention policy or eDiscovery assigned to your OneDrive, or to specific items within it. By design, these features prevent anyone from removing files stored in the PHL, so in order to clean it up, you need to first remove the corresponding policy/hold.

First thing to do here is discuss with your IT/security stuff whether retention can be removed, as some companies have legal requirements to meet. Once that part is clear, anyone with sufficient permission to access the Purview portal can review the retention policies and eDiscovery cases therein and make sure your ODFB is excluded. You can use the Policy Lookup tool to help you with the "discovery" process: https://purview.microsoft.com/datalifecyclemanagement/policylookup

Keep in mind that the process of removing retention/holds can take a while, and some additional time will be needed for the cleanup process to trigger on the backend and remove files from the PHL that are no longer on hold. A week or so is not an understatement...

Alternatively, you can try the Priority cleanup feature, which allows you to "override" retention policies and delete files that are under their scope. Fair warning, this feature is also slow, even slower than the process of excluding your ODFB from retention policies I detailed above. But it allows you to target specific files, without the need to remove the hold. You can read more about it here: https://michev.info/blog/post/6927/priority-cleanup-for-sharepoint-online-and-onedrive-for-business

Answer 2

To delete items from the Preservation Hold Library in OneDrive, you need to have specific permissions. The required role for performing deletions from the Preservation Hold Library typically includes:

• Compliance admin
• SharePoint admin
• Microsoft Purview admin

These roles have the necessary permissions to manage retention settings and delete items from the Preservation Hold Library.

Here are the steps you can follow:

1. Contact your organization's admin: Reach out to a Compliance admin, SharePoint admin, or Microsoft Purview admin in your organization and explain your situation.
2. Request deletion: Ask them to review the items in the Preservation Hold Library and request the deletion of the unwanted files. They will have the necessary permissions to perform this action.
3. Follow up: Ensure that the admin understands the urgency of reclaiming your storage space and follows through with the deletion process.

Keep in mind that items in the Preservation Hold Library are protected for compliance reasons, so the admin will need to ensure that the deletion aligns with your organization's compliance policies.

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References:

• Override holds to clean up files for Copilot and reclaim storage
• Unable to delete items in SharePoint and OneDrive