Change how long permanently deleted items are kept for an Exchange Online mailbox

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If you've permanently deleted an item in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook on the web (formerly known as Outlook Web App), the item is moved to a folder (Recoverable Items > Deletions) and kept there for 14 days, by default. You can change how long items are kept, up to a maximum of 30 days.

Note

You must use Exchange Online PowerShell to make the change. Unfortunately, you can't currently do this directly in Outlook or Outlook on the web.

What do you need to know before you begin?

Tip

Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange forums. Visit the forums at Exchange Online or Exchange Online Protection.

Change how long permanently deleted items are kept

In these examples, we increase the retention period to 30 days, the maximum for Exchange Online mailboxes. But you can set the number to whatever you like, up to that limit.

Example 1: Set Emily Maier's mailbox to keep deleted items for 30 days. In Exchange Online PowerShell, run the following command.

Set-Mailbox -Identity "Emily Maier" -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30

Example 2: Set all user mailboxes in the organization to keep deleted items for 30 days. In Exchange Online PowerShell, run the following command.

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter "RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox'" | Set-Mailbox -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30

Need more details about using these commands? See Exchange Online PowerShell Help article Set-Mailbox.

Note

These commands only apply to existing mailboxes and will not affect new mailboxes that you create in the future. To change this setting on all new mailboxes, use a mailbox plan that has a new retention policy that applies to new mailboxes. See Mailbox plans and Set-MailboxPlan for more information.

Tip

To keep deleted items for longer than 30 days, place the mailbox on In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold. This works because when a mailbox is placed on hold, deleted items are kept and retention settings for deleted items are ignored. See In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold.

Check to be sure the value is changed

To check for one mailbox, run the following command:

Get-Mailbox <Name> | Format-List RetainDeletedItemsFor

Or to check for all mailboxes, run the following command:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter "RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox'" | Format-List Name,RetainDeletedItemsFor

More about deleted items and retention time

When a user permanently deletes a mailbox item (such as an email message, a contact, a calendar appointment, or a task) in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook on the web, the item is moved to the Recoverable Items folder, and into a subfolder named Deletions.

A mailbox item is deleted and moved to the Recoverable Items folder when a user does one of the following:

  • Deletes an item from the Deleted Items folder

  • Empties the Deleted Items folder

  • Permanently deletes an item by selecting it and pressing Shift+Delete

How long deleted items are kept in the Deletions folder depends on the deleted item retention period that is set for the mailbox. An Exchange Online mailbox keeps deleted items for 14 days, by default. Use Exchange Online PowerShell, as shown above, to change this setting, to increase the period up to a maximum of 30 days.

Users can recover, or purge, deleted items before the retention time for a deleted item expires. To do so, they use the Recover Deleted Items feature in Outlook or Outlook on the web. See the following articles for Outlook for Windows or for Outlook on the web.

Additional help: