Are emails retained on unlicensed accounts within Microsoft 365?

Companies are always looking to save money by cutting down on costs, as any unnecessary purchases or subscription plans can often leave a deep hole in your wallet even if you didn’t require the service or product. That’s the case with unlicensed users on Microsoft 365 (where a user account is there but doesn’t have a license.) The topic of this blog is can you retain mail on unlicensed user accounts and, if so, how? Follow through for more information.

Emails can be retained for a certain length of time. Follow through for more information on how to retain user mailbox contents from an unlicensed account.

  1. Sign in to your Office 365 account first.
  2. Navigate to the admin center using the app launcher.
  3. Choose “Exchange” in the admin dashboard’s “admin center” section (you may need to click “Show all” to gain access).
  4. Click “Mailboxes” under “Recipients.”
  5. Locate and double-click the selected user UserA in the “Mailboxes” tab. A window displaying mailbox information will appear.
  6. From the drop-down box, choose “More Options.”
  7. You’ll see a database number, which you’ll need to continue. The “Edit user mailbox” panel should now be closed.
  8. Select “Migration” from the drop-down menu.
  9. Click the “+” sign to start a new relocation request.
  10. From the dropdown menu, choose “Move to a Different Database.”
  11. Add User A by clicking “+.” > Press the Next button.
  12. You’ll be asked to name the batch, which can be anything you choose.
  13. Select the mailbox database from the Target Database drop-down menu.
  14. Select the destination mailbox in the Target Archive Database field > Next should be selected.
  15. For the migrating batch, you now have a number of options. You have complete control over these steps, with explanations supplied for each option.
  16. Finally, to begin, click “Complete the migration.”

That’s it; those are the procedures you’ll need to move mailbox material from one domain to another. It’s a time-consuming operation, but it’ll be worthwhile because you’ll get the entire record of data from User A without having to manually carry anything. The database number serves as an ID for Exchange to verify that you have access if you are authorized to conduct tasks like these in a user’s Mailbox.

Mailbox content is retained but only for a limited amount of time

You may not realize it, but when a user’s license is removed, all data linked with that user’s account is stored for 30 days. Except for documents saved on SharePoint Online, data is deleted after the 30-day grace period and cannot be recovered. If you want to keep the user’s email, relocate it to a different location, as demonstrated above, before deleting the account. If you’ve previously deleted the account, you can restore it if it’s been less than 30 days, then move the email data, and then delete the account again using the procedure above.

  • Do you need to revise something? Don’t worry, you may do this even after you’ve completed the migration transfer.
  • Unusable stuff, sometimes known as bad items, maybe conspicuous. 
  • On the Migration page, you’ll see a list of all active move requests. 
  • To change the bad item limit, click the pen sign. 
  • After that, you’ll be taken to the standard mailbox move properties page. 
  • You can change the “Bad item” limit here, as seen below.

The data retention term for an unlicensed user who is erased is similarly 30 days. In the meantime, we strongly advise that you back up the contents of an employee’s mailbox before deleting it. We showed you a method above, however, if the method above doesn’t yield a result you want — let’s say you need the data in a different format — use the steps below.

  • Before canceling the user account, place a “Litigation Hold” or an “In-Place Hold” on the mailbox. This is far more difficult than the first alternative, but it’s worth it if your Enterprise plan includes archiving and legal hold, litigation is a possibility, and your IT group is technically capable. Administrators, compliance officers, and records managers can use Exchange Online’s In-Place eDiscovery capabilities to access and search the contents once the mailbox has been converted to an “inactive mailbox.” This pretty much sums up the different approaches you can take to resolve the issue of retaining mailbox contents from unlicensed users.

In-depth step by step process – How to retain mail from unlicensed users

Step by step breakdown – [with screenshots]

  • Sign in to your Office 365 account first.
  • Navigate to admin using the app launcher.
  • Choose “Exchange” in the admin dashboard’s “admin center” section (you may need to click “Show all” to gain access).
  • Click “Mailboxes” under “Recipients.”
  • Locate and double-click the selected user UserA in the “Mailboxes” tab. A window displaying mailbox information will appear.
  • From the drop-down box, choose “More Options.”
  • You’ll see a database number, which you’ll need to continue.
  • The “Edit user mailbox” panel should now be closed.
  • Select “Migration” from the drop-down menu.
  • Click the “+” sign to start a new relocation request.
  • From the dropdown menu, choose “Move to a Different Database.”
  • Add User A by clicking “+.”
  • Then press the Next button.
  • You’ll be asked to name the batch, which can be anything you choose.
  • Select the mailbox database from the Target Database drop-down menu.
  • Select the destination mailbox in the Target Archive Database field.
  • Next should be selected.
  • For the migrating batch, you now have a number of options. You have complete control over these steps, with explanations supplied for each option.
  • Finally, to begin, click “Complete the migration.”

That’s it for this Blog thank you for taking time out to read our content, please feel free to email our team about how it went if you followed the steps or if you need more help with the questions we answered in this Blog.

Saajid Gangat

Saajid Gangat has been a researcher and content writer at Business Tech Planet since 2021. Saajid is a tech-savvy writer with expertise in web and graphic design and has extensive knowledge of Microsoft 365, Adobe, Shopify, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and more! You can connect with Saajid on Linkedin.

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