Can't delete a site because of a retention policy or eDiscovery hold

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business

Symptoms

You might experience one of the following scenarios.

Scenario 1: When you try to delete a Microsoft SharePoint site, you receive the following error message:

Can't delete site.
A compliance policy is currently blocking this site deletion.

Scenario 2: When you try to delete a version of a document that's on a SharePoint site or on a Microsoft OneDrive site, you receive the following error message:

Versions of this item cannot be deleted because it is on hold or retention policy.

Scenario 3: You've excluded or removed a SharePoint or a OneDrive site from a retention policy. More than 24 hours after you make these updates, you try to delete the site or a version of a document on the site. However, the attempt is unsuccessful, and you receive one of the error messages that are mentioned in scenarios 1 and 2.

Scenario 4: You've excluded or removed a SharePoint or a OneDrive site from an eDiscovery hold. When you try to delete the site, the attempt is unsuccessful, and you receive the error message that is mentioned in scenario 1.

Cause

Each of these error messages is generated when you try to delete a SharePoint or OneDrive site in either of the following situations:

  • You exclude or remove the site from a retention policy. However, the retention policy is invalid.
  • The eDiscovery hold is within a 30-day grace period that prevents the site from being deleted.

Resolution

Verify the validity of the retention policy or determine whether the eDiscovery hold is within the grace period. To do this, run the following test in the Microsoft 365 admin center. You must have Global or Compliance administrator permissions to use these steps.

Note

This diagnostic isn't available for the GCC High or DoD environments, or for Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet.

  1. 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

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

  3. Select Run Tests.

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

If the test finds that the eDiscovery hold is within the 30-day grace period, you can choose to remove the hold.

More information

To resolve the error in Scenario 4, you can use either the diagnostic or the Invoke-HoldRemovalAction command. This command can remove eDiscovery holds that are invalid, legacy, or within the 30-day grace period.