Outlook Online Archive for Office 365 Explained
When mailboxes grow too large, you will no longer be able to receive or send mail. Another common problem with large mailboxes is that Outlook will take longer to load. To solve this, we can use online archives in Outlook.
Online archive mailboxes are available to adequately licensed Office365 users. The advantage of online archives (also known as in-place archives) is that older emails are automatically archived in a separate archive mailbox.
What is Outlook Online Archive?
Before we look at the requirements and how to use Online Archive, let’s first look at what exactly Outlook Online Archive is. And how different it is from an ordinary archive.
As the name implies, it is an online archive mailbox. This gives the Exchange Online archive several essential features:
- It is only available with an internet connection
- Data is not stored on the user’s computer — it saves disk space
- It is a separate mailbox
By archiving emails in the In-place archive, you can thus free up disk space on the user’s computer. This will also help reduce Outlook’s loading time. And it also helps with mailbox cleaning because Outlook only searches the primary mailbox by default.
Folder Online Archive vs. Archive
Every Outlook mailbox comes with an Archive folder. The difference between this folder and the Online Archive is that the Archive folder is part of the user’s primary mailbox. Users can move emails to their archive folder to clear their inbox or use the Archive button.
You can also archive your mail in local PST files. The problem with PST files is that you’ll need to ensure they’re backed up. Otherwise, you risk losing data when the user’s device is lost, or the hard drive crashes.
Another problem with PST files is that they can only be accessed from the computer where the PST file is located. The online archive, for example, can also be accessed from Outlook Online or the Outlook app.
Online archive size limit
It’s good to know that the 1.5 TB archive limit is not the initial archive size. The online archive is initially limited to 100 Gb. When the single archive is almost complete (at 90%), you can increase it by auto-expanding archiving.
This will add another 100 Gb storage limit until the archive reaches the 1.5 Tb limit. Note that it may take up to 30 days for the additional storage space to be added.
Enable Mailbox Archiving in Office 365
Exchange Online Archive is enabled by default for your users. When you want to use the online archive, you’ll need to allow it on a per-user basis or for your entire organization. We can use the Microsoft Purview Compliance portal (formerly Microsoft 365 Compliance) or PowerShell to enable it.
- Open Microsoft Purview (Microsoft Compliance Center)
- Click on Data Lifecycle Management
- Select the user
- Click Enable Archive
Conclusion
Using Outlook Online Archive is a great way to reduce mailbox space and clean your inbox. Exchange’s default online archiving policies are more than fine for most situations.
They strike a good balance in quickly finding email when users search and keeping a decent-sized primary mailbox. Be sure to inform your users about the policies and when emails are moved to the archive folder.
