Overview Of Office 365 Archive Mailbox

I have been thinking about writing an article about the overview of office 365 archive mailboxes for a long time and it is going to happen today.

An archive mailbox is a specialized mailbox that appears alongside the employee’s primary mailbox folders in Outlook and Outlook Web App. Like the primary mailbox, the archive can be searched, and deleted items recovered.

Online Archive Features

• A cloud archive mailbox has unlimited storage and no limitations like a primary mailbox, which is cool.
• Online archives can be easily accessed via Outlook 2016 and later versions and OWA.
• Emails are easily searchable in the archive mailbox and you can access them from anywhere.
• Emails can be moved to an archive mailbox from a primary mailbox using manual effort or automatic.

How do I enable online archives in Microsoft 365?

There are a few options to enable the online archive in cloud and they’re listed below.

Option 1: Exchange on-premises

If you are in a hybrid environment, you can use on-premises to enable online archive on users mailbox. After the sync is completed, you can see the changes in Microsoft 365.

• To do this, go to Exchange on-premises PowerShell.
• Execute the command. Enable-RemoteMailbox “display name” -Archive

• Wait for changes to replicate in cloud.
• Check the status via Exchange Online PowerShell.

Option 2: Exchange Admin Center in Microsoft 365

Yes, you can use the Exchange admin center in Microsoft 365 admin center to enable the online archive on user mailboxes. There is no need to wait for a sync like in the previous method.

• Go to the “Exchange Admin Center“.
• Select “Recipients” > Mailboxes“.
• Search for the user and click Others.
• Click “Manage mailbox archive“.

• Turn the option On and click Save.

Option 3: Microsoft Purview compliance portal

We have another option to enable the archive in Microsoft 365 which is the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. Similar to the Exchange Admin Center, this option does not require synchronization.

• Go to the “Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal“.
• In the left pane of the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, click Data lifecycle management, and then click the Archive tab.
• In the list of mailboxes, select the user that you want to enable the archive mailbox for and select Enable Archive.
• Search for the user and click Enable on the right.

How do I setup a policy on an archive mailbox to move emails automatically from the primary mailbox?

End users can choose a policy for each folder on a primary mailbox to move emails into an archive mailbox. To do this,

• Access “Outlook Web Access (OWA)“.
• Right-click a folder (inbox, as an example).
• Select “Assign Policy“.
• Choose a policy that you wish to apply.

• If you are interested in deleting emails from a specific folder, follow the above steps but use the retention policy that automatically deletes emails.

How do I move messages into my cloud archive mailbox in Outlook?

• You can move items from your primary mailbox to your cloud archive mailbox with a simple drag and drop. This is ideal for moving small amounts of email to your archive mailbox. Using Copy/Paste/Delete to move larger quantities of email.
• Select multiple messages from your primary mailbox, press CTRL+C to copy them.
• Open the target folder in your archive mailbox.
• Click CTRL-V to paste them into the target folder.
• Go back to your primary mailbox and delete the messages you just copied to your archive mailbox.

How do I access an archive mailbox?

This is the question many of you may ask. Here is the answer.

• Outlook, you will see an additional mailbox called ‘Online Archive – Your Email Address‘.
• In Outlook Web Access (OWA), the online archive is called ‘In-Place Archive – Your Name’. See the image below.

Outlook Web Access:

Outlook 2016 and later versions:

How do I search both my Outlook and my Exchange Online?

You can choose all mailboxes in the search field to search both your primary mailbox and archive mailbox. This will show the results for not only the primary mailbox but also online.

How do I give someone else access to my cloud archive mailbox?

If you want someone to access your cloud archive mailbox, then full access rights to your mailbox must be granted to them. The same rights will be granted automatically to the archive mailboxes.

Congratulations! You have learned about the overview of office 365 archive mailbox.

Also Read: How To encrypting Office 365 emails effectively?

Want to improve your Exchange Online experience for better productivity? Check out the tips and tricks mentioned here.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Which finding from today’s report did you find most interesting? Or maybe you have a question about something that I covered.

Either way, I’d like to hear from you. So go ahead and leave a comment below.