Admin-configuredĪrchive/retention tags rely on our admin to configure. There are several approaches to keep our mailboxes tidy.

Some rules can only be applied in Outlook (check Server-side vs.

From our topic's perspective there are some limitations: They help a lot with maintaining the tidiness in our folders. Inbox rules are not strictly intended for cleaning old items.

Manage email messages by using rules (in Outlook).

Fortunately, Microsoft covers that topic. It's also a bit out of scope for our article. We can do so based on their subject, body, data, or many more.Ĭreating and managing inbox rules is a complex topic. We could utilize this mechanism to move emails to a specific folder. Managing incoming emails using inbox rulesĪnother option for cleaning up our mailbox is inbox rules.

Cannot be enabled if the online archive is enabled.

Items can only be archived to a local file.

It has similar limitations except for the cut-off date: We could consider Clean Up Old Items as an add-on to AutoArchive. If we choose to clean the folder, we can specify a cut-off date. We also have an option to clean a specific folder (including its subfolders).

The screenshot below demonstrates the steps:Ĭlean Up Old Items functionality in the File menuįrom the Archive window, we can now manually trigger the AutoArchive process. Go to Assign policy (2) and choose the desired archive policy (3).Right-click the folder we'd like to archive (1).To apply archive policy to a folder using Outlook on the web, let's follow these steps: Exchange Online service description states that The retention policy will not run automatically for mailboxes that are smaller than 10 MB.Īpplying archive policy to a folder using Outlook on the web If you follow the steps below on a test mailbox, make sure its size is bigger than 10MB. In the following steps, we'll be applying personal retention tag to a folder. The latter is compliance feature, which can be applied to more than Exchange. We'll do it using retention policy with archive and retention tags.ĭo not mix up Exchange retention policy with Microsoft 365 retention policy. We can force Exchange service to do cleanup on our behalf. No filtering by any other field than sender addressĬleaning up the mailbox using archive and retention tags.If you want to change something, you need to delete the rule and recreate it. Notice that the management interface is very limited. Once we're signed in go to the gear icon (1) and click View all Outlook settings (2): The steps to use it are demonstrated below: Outlook Web Access provides an interface to remove all the emails folder by folder. Managing incoming emails using inbox rules.Archiving the mailbox using Clean Up Old Items.Archiving the mailbox using AutoArchive.Applying archive policy to a folder using Outlook.Applying archive policy to a folder using Outlook on the web.Cleaning up the mailbox using archive and retention tags.

Cleaning up the folders using sweep rules.Keep that in mind.įor this demonstration, we'll use Exchange Online mailbox. Enabling archive will move all emails (and other items) older than 2 years to archive. It's necessary if we want to move emails to the archive.Īrchive policy defaults to 2 years. The archive is not required, if we plan to delete emails. Follow Enable archive mailboxes in the compliance center if you don't have it PrerequisitesĮxchange Online ( and Exchange Server support some of the features) This blog post describes 6 ways to clean up Outlook mailbox in Exchange Online.

Clean email box