No soft-deleted mailbox after license removal in Microsoft 365

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    Exchange Online

Original KB number:   3158794

Symptoms

When you try to perform a mailbox-restore operation to recover the contents of a deleted mailbox in Microsoft 365, you can't find a soft-deleted mailbox for the account that was deprovisioned.

Cause

Currently, removing the license leaves the mailbox in a disabled state. Therefore, the mailbox is not displayed as either Soft Deleted or Inactive. The following command is specific to removing the license in PowerShell:

Set-MSOLUserLicense -UserPrincipalName "<Account>" -RemoveLicenses

Note

Azure AD and MSOnline PowerShell modules are deprecated as of March 30, 2024. To learn more, read the deprecation update. After this date, support for these modules are limited to migration assistance to Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK and security fixes. The deprecated modules will continue to function through March, 30 2025.

We recommend migrating to Microsoft Graph PowerShell to interact with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). For common migration questions, refer to the Migration FAQ. Note: Versions 1.0.x of MSOnline may experience disruption after June 30, 2024.

This may leave the mailbox in a disabled state that prevents it from being displayed as either Soft Deleted or Inactive. In this situation, the following commands won't find the mailbox:

Get-Mailbox <Account> -SoftDeletedMailbox
Get-Mailbox <Account> -IncludeInactive

Resolution

When the license is removed from a mailbox without following other deprovisioning steps, this may leave the mailbox in a disabled state. In order to recover the mailbox, the user must relicense the Azure user object. That will reconnect the mailbox as long as it's within 30 days from the disconnect date. After 30 days, the mailbox will be permanently deleted and not recoverable.

Screenshot of the Assign License page in Microsoft 365.

If the on-premises account no longer exists and is not listed in the Active Users section of the Microsoft 365 admin center, and the account was deleted less than 30 days earlier, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.

  2. Locate Users > Deleted Users.

    Screenshot of the Deleted Users field under the Users tab.

  3. Search for the user, and then select the account object.

  4. Select the Restore option.

    Note

    The user becomes an active user. The Sync Type is now listed as In cloud instead of Synced with Active Directory.

    Screenshot shows that the Sync Type is now listed as In cloud.

  5. Locate Active Users, and then add an Exchange license for the user.

  6. After some minutes, the mailbox becomes active in Exchange.

  7. When you finish the search and export, run the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet to change the object to a soft-deleted mailbox. The soft-deleted mailbox will be available for 30 days. It can be returned to an active state by using the Undo-SoftDeletedMailbox cmdlet.