I want to restore emails deleted more than 30 days ago.

Nozomi.K 0 Reputation points
2024-06-18T07:06:02.48+00:00

I am using Microsoft 365 Apps for Business/Outlook on Windows 10.

If I need to restore emails deleted more than 30 days ago for audit purposes, is there a way to do so?

Would it be impossible without using dedicated data recovery software or services?

Also, if restoration is possible, can it be restricted to administrators only?

(Can the process be conducted without notifying the user of the email restoration?)

Additionally, our current plan does not include litigation hold, so we are not utilizing it.

If we were to enable this feature, how many years of emails could we potentially retain?

(*According to the article below, it seems there is no expiration date, but is there a maximum limit?)

https://video2.skills-academy.com/ja-jp/exchange/policy-and-compliance/holds/litigation-holds?view=exchserver-2019

Microsoft Exchange Online
Outlook
Outlook
A family of Microsoft email and calendar products.
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  1. Vasil Michev 99,106 Reputation points MVP
    2024-06-18T16:15:43.3266667+00:00

    There are multiple levels of deletion in Exchange Online, but generally speaking if a user hard-deletes a message, the maximum period you can recover it for is 30 days. Hard-deleted messages can only be recovered by an admin, by following the instructions here: https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/exchange/recipients-in-exchange-online/manage-user-mailboxes/recover-deleted-messages

    If you have a requirement to preserve data for more than 30 days, you should switch to an SKU that includes the Exchange Online Plan 2 license, which in turn allows you to put mailboxes on hold. There are different kinds of hold, but all of them require "premium" license and can be used to preserve data immutably and indefinitely. Litigation hold is easiest to set up and covers the entire content of a given mailbox, if you need some granularity you can use retention policies instead.

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