#Office 365 email deleted items recovery how to
#Office 365 email deleted items recovery license

To restore deleted items to their original mailboxes, use the following two cmdlets: Get-RecoverableItems to find the right items and Restore-RecoverableItems to put them back in their original folders (or in the inbox if these folders are no longer accessible).

#Office 365 email deleted items recovery how to

Read more about Microsoft 365 litigation holds and retention policies How to recover deleted Microsoft 365 items using PowerShellīefore you start the recovery process, make sure you have the Mailbox Import Export role assigned in Exchange Online and connect to Exchange Online via PowerShell.

#Office 365 email deleted items recovery license

Provided you have the right license for the user, you can recover the deleted items. If a mailbox is on litigation hold, emails and other items won’t be permanently deleted from the Recoverable Items folders. When this happens, the only way to recover deleted items is to restore them from a backup. Both methods cause emails to be removed beyond recovery. You can also use Search-Mailbox with the -DeleteContent switch to permanently delete items. In Exchange Online, the item is placed in a hidden Purges folder which is the Recoverable Items subfolder which cannot be accessed by users (items from this folder can only be accessed and restored by a Microsoft 365 admin).Įxchange Online uses Managed Folder Assistant to automatically delete items from the Purges folder. By default, the period is 14 days long, but this can be extended to a maximum of 30 days.įinally, if a user purges an email from the Recoverable Items folder, it enters the hard-delete state. While the user can still restore an email from there, it will be permanently removed when the retention period is over. That’s also where an email goes after a user deletes it with the shift+ delete key combination. Next, if an item is deleted from the Deleted Items folder, it enters a soft-delete state, i.e. Users can easily access and recover such item using their Outlook desktop app or in Outlook on the web. In other words, it is the standard mailbox’s trash bin.

There are 3 levels of “deletion” from which items can be restored:įirst, if an item is removed using the delete key (or right-click > delete), it goes to the Deleted Items folder. What happens to deleted items in Microsoft 365 And for the dessert, I’ll show you how to recover public folders deleted from the organization.īut first, it is crucial to understand what happens to deleted emails in Microsoft 365. Below, I’ll describe how to recover deleted Microsoft 365 users’ mailbox items with PowerShell and with the Modern Exchange Admin Center (EAC). While you can use eDiscovery to recover deleted items, there is an easier way which lets you restore deleted items straight back to where they originated from. If you are a Microsoft 365 administrator, it’s only a matter of time before you are tasked with restoring deleted emails (or other mailbox items).

Update: This article was updated on July 26, 2021.