[SOLVED] Emails Not Moving To Archive In Microsoft 365

Are your crucial emails playing a game of hide-and-seek, stubbornly refusing to make their way into the archive within Microsoft 365? If the frustration of a cluttered inbox and uncooperative emails sounds all too familiar, you’re not alone. Today, we’re on a mission to crack the code and solve the puzzle of why “emails not moving to archive” is a persistent challenge.

In the intricate web of Microsoft 365, where every email should seamlessly find its designated place in the archive, some messages have a mind of their own. Picture this: an inbox that not only houses your emails but also orchestrates a symphony of order by elegantly guiding messages into the archive at precisely the right moment. Your journey to an impeccably organized email sanctuary begins now.

Join us as we unravel the intricacies of why emails may resist the siren call to the archive and explore the solutions that will restore tranquility to your Microsoft 365 realm. By the end of this expedition, armed with newfound knowledge, you’ll bid farewell to inbox chaos and welcome a clutter-free oasis of emails. Let’s embark on this adventure together and reclaim control of your inbox.

Archive Status

• In a hybrid setup, take a peek at the archive mailbox status when the user account is synchronized from on-premises, and the archive mailbox is located in Microsoft 365. Make sure to use the ArchiveGUID to double-check the archive status in both on-premises and the cloud.

Execute the provided cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell:

Get-RemoteMailbox “Display Name” | FL ArchiveGuid

Execute the provided cmdlet in Exchange Online:

Get-Mailbox “Display Name” | FL ArchiveGuid

• Verify that the output of both commands aligns. If there’s any discrepancy, take the necessary steps to ensure they match. In my situation, both outputs are identical.

Retention Policy

A 2-year retention policy has been set for the mailbox, designed to shift emails older than 2 years from the user’s mailbox to the cloud archive. To confirm the application of the retention policy, use the following cmdlet in Microsoft 365 to fetch the retention policy assigned to the mailbox.

Get-Mailbox “Display Name” | FL RetentionPolicy

To add a retention policy to a specific mailbox through the portal:

• Navigate to the Exchange admin center
• Head over to Recipients, and then select Mailboxes from the list view.
• Once you’ve pinpointed the desired mailbox, click on Mailbox.

• Simply pick the retention policy you wish to assign to the mailbox from the Retention policy list, and after making your selection, click Save. Your chosen policy is now successfully applied to the selected mailbox.

To assign a retention policy to an individual mailbox via PowerShell:

Set-Mailbox “Display Name” -RetentionPolicy “PolicyName”

ELcProcessing and RetentionHold

Ensure thatELcProcessingDisabledis set to its default value ofFalse, as this property prevents the MFA from processing the retention policy and other functions. Also, confirm that Retention hold is not enabled (False), as this will only prevent expiring items in folders from being visible to the user, but not in the Recoverable Items folder. For more information on Retention tags, policies and holds, seeRetention tags and retention policies in Exchange Online.

Retention Tags

Retention tags are used to apply retention settings to folders and individual items such as e-mail messages and voice mail. These settings specify how long a message remains in a mailbox and the action to be taken when the message reaches the specified retention age. When a message reaches its retention age, it’s moved to the user’s archive mailbox or deleted.

Default Tag: When a retention policy with default tags is applied, the policy automatically manages the retention of emails according to the specified rules. Users do not need to manually apply this policy to individual folders or emails. This ensures that the retention rules are consistently applied across all mailboxes within the scope of the policy without requiring additional user action.

Personal Tag: If you are using personal tags, users must manually apply these tags to their emails or folders. Personal tags do not automatically propagate or apply to all folders. This allows users to have specific control over which emails or folders are tagged and how they should be retained or archived based on their individual needs.

Emails not moving to archive mailbox

Once you’ve crafted the retention policy, keep in mind that it won’t kick into action automatically. However, you can manually trigger the process by running the provided cmdlet whenever you want to shift messages to the archive.

Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity “User Email Address” -FullCrawl -HoldCleanup
Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity “User Email Address” -AggMailboxCleanup

• The FullCrawl switch recalculates the application of tags across the whole mailbox.
• The HoldCleanup switch instructs the Managed Folder Assistant to clean up duplicate versions of items in the Recoverable Items folder that may have been created when a mailbox is on In-Place Hold, Litigation Hold, or has Single Item Recovery enabled.
• The AggMailboxCleanup switch specifies a more aggressive processing cycle if items aren’t moving as quickly as they should.

Tip1:

• In case you encounter a hiccup with the Managed Folder Assistant, and it throws a generic RPC error like “The call to Mailbox Assistance Service on server: ‘NAME’ failed. Error from RPC is –2147220989”, worry not.
• Sometimes, the error pops up during mailbox initialization within the service, especially if there’s ongoing provisioning, like setting up a secondary archive from a primary one.
• For a possible workaround, consider specifying the primary mailbox GUID in the start-ManagedFolderAssistant command. This tweak might just do the trick and help you sail through the process smoothly.

Get-Mailbox “Display Name” | FL ExchangeGUID

With this mailbox GUID, you can easily call on the managed folder assistance.

Start-ManagedFolderAssistant aace1f4e-5181-4855-a0c7-466f1fe2f1d1 -FullCrawl -HoldCleanup

By using the GUID, you’re ensuring a smoother initialization process, reducing the chances of any hiccups in the command. Once you’ve run the Managed Folder Assistant, your emails will smoothly transition from the primary mailbox to the cloud archive mailbox. Just keep in mind that it might take at least a day to process, and in certain cases, it could take a bit longer than 24 hours for all your emails to make the move.

Tip2:

Messaging Records Management (MRM) can be a bit sluggish as it takes its sweet time to process mailboxes. But don’t worry, you have the power to speed things up with a nifty command. Feel free to tweak the seconds to your liking—I personally go with 30 minutes in my case. It’s a game-changer!

while($true)
{
start-managedfolderassistant “User Email Address” -FullCrawl -HoldCleanup
write-host “waiting”; start-sleep -seconds 1800;
}

How do I check the email movement status?

• To snag a diagnostic log for a specific user, execute the command below.

$MRMLogs = [xml] ((Export-MailboxDiagnosticLogs “User Email Address” -ExtendedProperties).mailboxlog)
$MRMLogs.Properties.MailboxTable.Property | ? {$_.Name -like “ElcLastSuccessTimeStamp”}

ElcLastSuccessTimeStamp is like a seal of approval, indicating that the Managed Folder Assistant has successfully completed its most recent run.

• The command below unfolds like a treasure map, revealing these sought-after fields:

$MRMLogs = [xml] ((Export-MailboxDiagnosticLogs “User Email Address” -ExtendedProperties).mailboxlog)
$MRMLogs.Properties.MailboxTable.Property | ? {$_.Name -like “*ELC*”)

• And here’s a handy tidbit for Exchange Online users: The Managed Folder Assistant exclusively tackles mailboxes with a size exceeding 10 MB. It’s like a size threshold for MFA to kick into action.

Auto-Expanding Archive

• Unleash the power of unlimited storage with Exchange Online’s auto-expanding archiving feature! By flipping the switch on auto-expanding archiving, you ensure that when a user’s archive mailbox nears its storage limit, extra space is seamlessly added.
• The magic lies in the automatic expansion, granting your archive mailbox limitless storage capacity. Feel free to customize this feature for your organization—whether it’s for everyone or just specific users. It’s like giving your mailbox the ability to grow boundlessly.

Before the magic of auto-expanding archiving:

After the magic of auto-expanding archiving:

• To ensure that the magic of auto-expanding archiving is working its charm for your entire organization, simply fire up Exchange Online PowerShell and run this command:

Get-OrganizationConfig | FL AutoExpandingArchiveEnabled

• If you see “True,” it means that the organization has the cool feature of auto-expanding archiving turned on. To double-check if a particular user has this feature enabled, just pop this command into your Exchange Online PowerShell.

Get-Mailbox “Display Name” | FL AutoExpandingArchiveEnabled

• If you’re in the mood to give a specific mailbox this nifty ability, fire up this command:

Enable-Mailbox “Display Name” -AutoExpandingArchive

Also read: How to fix Office 365 Online Archive Pending status in a hybrid environment?

Nice job on resolving the emails not moving to archive hiccup!

As for today’s report, I’m curious to know which discovery caught your attention the most. Anything intriguing or maybe a question popped up while you were going through it? Your thoughts matter, so feel free to drop a comment below and share.