Forum Discussion
Export a users Exchange Online Archive from the admin console.
Hi Is it possible to export a users Exchange Online Archive from the admin console (i.e. emptying it at the same time). Thanks.
- Access the Compliance Center:
- Go to the Microsoft 365 compliance center.
- Sign in with your admin credentials.
- Create a Content Search:
- Navigate to Content search under Solutions.
- Click on New search and provide a name and description for the search.
- Define the search criteria to include the user’s archive mailbox.
- Run the Search:
- Start the search and wait for it to complete. You can monitor the progress in the Content search section.
- Export the Results:
- Once the search is complete, select the search and click on Export results.
- Choose the options to export the results to a PST file.
- Download the PST File:
- After the export is ready, download the PST file from the Export tab.
- Empty the Archive:
- To empty the archive, you can use PowerShell to remove the contents. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell and use the Search-Mailbox cmdlet to delete the items.
Below the sample PS to delete items from the archive:
Search-Mailbox -Identity "email address removed for privacy reasons" -SearchQuery "Received:01/01/2000..12/31/2024" -DeleteContent -TargetMailbox "email address removed for privacy reasons" -TargetFolder "DeletedItems" -LogLevel Full
Hi
I don't seem able to target just the archive folder from the options available
I run the search, for everything older than 1st May and get the following result, showing it's returning results from 2 mailboxes.
Going along with that search, I then try exporting, and get the following error message.
Any ideas?
Thanks
D
Hi, a little bit more progress.
The final error message above was caused by using a browser other than Edge. Switching to Edge, gets rid of the error, and I'm able to download the PST.
Now, I'm being met with a problem with the Search-Mailbox query, turns out it was deprecated in January, so all I'm getting is "Search-Mailbox : The term 'Search-Mailbox' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet...." from the V3 EXO PowerShell module.
I just need a bit more help to simply delete all mails in the users mailbox older than 1st May 2024. I don't want them going to the Deleted Items folder, I just want them gone and the space freed up.
2 weeks on and still no further. I've spent 6 hours on the phone today with the tech support, and at the end of it, it seems like there is no thought out plan with what Microsoft expect from the archive, or how it will be used. Any searches and policies apply to the main mailbox, and the archive as a whole. I want to systematically delete items from the archive? Not possible, it's going to delete from the main mailbox too. Just what is the point of the archive. If everything is treated like it's in the main mailbox, then why not just keep everything in the main mailbox. Unless Microsoft's plan is that we keep increasing the online archive forever more, paying more and more per month to store an ever increasing amount, because we're not allowed to delete anything from it.
There's a problem when even the tech support has to go and ask his tech support because nothing he is trying works.
