• Home
  • Posts
  • Archive Outlook Emails Using Office 365 Archive Policy, Learn how.
Archive Outlook Emails Using Office 365 Archive Policy, Learn how.
office 365 archive policy | CloudAlly
Try our Backup Interactive Product Tour

Outlook emails hold business-critical data which needs a safety net from data loss. Microsoft (Office) 365 offers some native archival options to protect them. In this blog, we examine one such native way to archive Outlook emails using the Office 365 archive policy.

There are two ways to configure Office 365 archive mailboxes: using the graphical interface at the Office 365 Admin Center or by using Microsoft PowerShell. Additionally, PowerShell allows us to enable archive mailboxes for all users in the organization.
Note: You need to have the Mail Recipients role in Exchange Online to configure Archive mailboxes. Need to configure retention policies instead? Read Part 2: How to setup Office 365 Retention Policy

 

Book a Demo

Native Microsoft Backup: How To Archive Outlook Emails Using Office 365 Archive Policy?

Method 1: Enable Microsoft 365 Archive Mailbox Via The Compliance Center

Watch the video here or follow the step-wise instructions below

Step 1: Open the Office 365 Compliance Center 

office 365 archive policy

Step 2: On the left navigation menu select Information Governance

office 365 archive policy

Step 3: Then click on the Archive tab

office 365 archive policy  

Step 4: Select the user on the table and click Enable archive on the control panel above the table. On the right side you can see the capacity and current usage of the mailbox of the selected user.

office 365 archive policy

Step 5: Click “Enable” to archive the mailbox for the selected user

office 365 archive policy

Step 6: You can confirm that Archive Mailbox is enabled

Archive Emails in Outlook

Step 7: If the status is still Disabled then just click Refresh

office 365 archive policy

Step 8: Click Disable archive if you need to stop using the archive mailbox for the selected user

Archive Emails in Outlook

Method 2: Enable Microsoft (Office) 365 Archive Mailbox Using Microsoft PowerShell

Step 1: Open the Start menu and type “powershell” to find the Windows PowerShell application and then select it to run

Archive Emails in Outlook

Step 2: Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell using the PowerShell Commandlet (cmdlet)

Connect-ExchangeOnline

The Exchange Online module will load and the Sign-in window will open

Archive Emails in Outlook

Step 3: Type your user name (email) and password

Step 4: Once it is connected to your Office 365 tenant, you will see a new command line

Archive Emails in Outlook

Step 5: Insert the cmdlet to enable archiving the mailbox for the selected user

Where is the user’s display name

Enable-Mailbox -Identity  -Archive

Archive Emails in Outlook

Step 6: To enable archive mailboxes for all users run the following cmdlet

Get-Mailbox -Filter {ArchiveGuid -Eq "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" -AND RecipientTypeDetails -Eq "UserMailbox"} | Enable-Mailbox -Archive

Step 7: To disable archive mailbox for a single user run the cmdlet

Where is the user’s display name

Disable-Mailbox -Identity  -Archive

For example:

Disable-Mailbox -Identity "Nada Al Sehli" -Archive

Step 8: To disable archive mailboxes for all users run the cmdlet

Get-Mailbox -Filter {ArchiveGuid -Ne "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" -AND RecipientTypeDetails -Eq "UserMailbox"} | Disable-Mailbox -Archive

Method 3: Backup Outlook Emails With Point-in-Time Recovery

Prefer an easier way? Simply backup your Exchange using CloudAlly Microsoft 365 Backup. It backs up all Microsoft 365 Exchange emails, calendars, contacts, and tasks in minutes. And our Outlook compatible .pst export means that your Office 365 data is still available even if MS Azure is temporarily unavailable.

Protect all your Microsoft Office 365 data from loss with top-rated, automated, and secure backup and recovery in minutes

Start a FREE 14-day full-feature trial – Exchange Online Backup

NO Credit Card | 5-Min Setup (honest!) | Unlimited AWS Storage

Try a hands-on Interactive Product Tour

Right Here and Right Now!