In Office 365, archive mailboxes provide users with additional mailbox storage space. After a user's archive mailbox is enabled, up to 100 GB of additional storage is available. In the past, when the 100-GB storage quota was reached, organizations had to contact Microsoft to request additional storage space for an archive mailbox. That's no longer the case.
The archiving feature in Microsoft 365 (called auto-expanding archiving) provides up to 1.5 TB of additional storage in archive mailboxes. When the storage quota in the archive mailbox is reached, Microsoft 365 automatically (and incrementally) increases the size of the archive until the archive mailbox reaches 1.5 TB.
For step-by-step instructions for turning on auto-expanding archiving, see Enable auto-expanding archiving.
Note
Auto-expanding archiving also supports shared mailboxes. To enable the archive for a shared mailbox, an Exchange Online Plan 2 license or an Exchange Online Plan 1 license with an Exchange Online Archiving license is required.
How auto-expanding archiving works
As previously explained, additional mailbox storage space is created when a user's archive mailbox is enabled. When auto-expanding archiving is enabled, Microsoft 365 periodically checks the size of the archive mailbox. When an archive mailbox gets close to its storage limit, Microsoft 365 automatically creates additional storage space for the archive. If the user runs out of this additional storage space, Microsoft 365 adds more storage space to the user's archive. This process continues until the user's archive reaches a size 1.5 TB. This process happens automatically, which means administrators don't have to request additional archive storage or manage auto-expanding archiving.
Here's a quick overview of the process.
Archiving is enabled for a user mailbox or a shared mailbox. An archive mailbox with 100 GB of storage space is created, and the warning quota for the archive mailbox is set to 90 GB.
An administrator enables auto-expanding archiving for the mailbox. If the mailbox has a hold or retention policy applied to it, the storage quota for the archive mailbox is increased to 110 GB and the archive warning quota is increased to 100 GB.
Then, when the archive mailbox (including the Recoverable Items folder) reaches its storage quota, the archive mailbox is converted to an auto-expanding archive. Extra storage space is added until it reaches a maximum size of 1.5 TB. It can take up to 30 days for the additional storage space to be provisioned.
Microsoft 365 automatically adds more storage space when necessary.
Important
Auto-expanding archiving is supported only for mailboxes used for individual users (or shared mailboxes) with a growth rate that doesn't exceed 1 GB per day. A user's archive mailbox is intended for just that user. Using journaling, transport rules, or auto-forwarding rules to copy messages to an archive mailbox is not permitted. Microsoft reserves the right to deny additional archiving in instances where a user's archive mailbox is used to store archive data for other users or in other cases of the inappropriate use.
What gets moved to the additional archive storage space?
To make efficient use of auto-expanding archive storage, folders may get moved. Microsoft 365 determines which folders get moved when additional storage is added to the archive. Sometimes when a folder is moved, one or more subfolders are automatically created and items from the original folder are distributed to these folders to facilitate the moving process. When viewing the archive portion of the folder list in Outlook, these subfolders are displayed under the original folder. The naming convention that Microsoft 365 uses to name these subfolders is <folder name>_yyyy (Created on mmm dd, yyyy h_mm), where:
yyyy is the year the messages in the folder were received.
mmm dd, yyyy h_m is the date and time that the subfolder was created by Office 365, in UTC format, based on the user's time zone and regional settings in Outlook.
The following screenshots show a folder list before and after messages are moved to an auto-expanded archive.
As previously described, Microsoft 365 moves items to subfolders (and names them using the naming convention described above) to help distribute content to an auxiliary archive. But moving items to subfolders may not always be the case. Sometimes an entire folder may be moved to an auxiliary archive. In this case, the folder will retain its original name. It won't be apparent in the folder list in Outlook that the folder was moved to an auxiliary archive.
Outlook requirements for accessing items in an auto-expanded archive
To access messages that are stored in an auto-expanded archive, users have to use one of the following Outlook clients:
Outlook as a part of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (previously named Office 365 ProPlus)
Outlook as a part of Microsoft 365 Apps for business (previously named Office 365 Business)
Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2019 for Windows
Outlook on the web
Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2019 for Mac
Here are some things to consider when using Outlook or Outlook on the web to access messages stored in an auto-expanded archive.
You can access any folder in your archive mailbox, including ones that were moved to the auto-expanded storage area.
If an archive mailbox has at least one auto-expanded storage area, you can't delete a folder from the archive mailbox or from the auxiliary archive. In other words, after an auto-expanded storage area has been provisioned, you can't delete any folders in the archive.
You can delete items in an auto-expanded storage area. However, you can't use the Recover Deleted Items feature to recover an item after auto-expanding archiving is enabled for a mailbox.
Search for auto-expanded archiving is available in Outlook for the web (OWA). Similar to Online Archive, you can search for items that were moved to an additional storage area. When archive is selected as the search scope in OWA, all archives (including auto-expanded archives) and their corresponding subfolders will be searched. Note that search is not supported for the auto-expanded archive feature in a cloud-only archive situation (primary mailbox still on-premises).
Auto-expanded archive search is available in Outlook for Windows in Monthly Enterprise Channel. With this update the Current Mailbox scope is available, thus allowing you to search the auto-expanded archive. Note that search is not supported for the auto-expanded archive feature in a cloud-only archive situation (primary mailbox still on-premises). For more information about this and other Microsoft Search support features, see How Outlook for Windows connected to Exchange Online utilizes Microsoft Search.
Item counts in Outlook and Read/Unread counts (in Outlook and Outlook on the web) in an auto-expanded archive might not be accurate.
Auto-expanding archiving and other compliance features
This section explains the functionality between auto-expanding archiving and other compliance and data governance features.
eDiscovery: When you use an eDiscovery tool, such as Content Search or In-Place eDiscovery, the additional storage areas in an auto-expanded archive are also searched.
Retention: When you put a mailbox on hold by using tools such as Litigation Hold in Exchange Online or eDiscovery case holds and retention policies in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, content located in an auto-expanded archive is also placed on hold.
Messaging records management (MRM): If you use MRM deletion policies in Exchange Online to permanently delete expired mailbox items, expired items located in the auto-expanded archive will also be deleted.
Import service: You can use the Office 365 Import service to import PST files to a user's auto-expanded archive. You can import up to 100 GB of data from PST files to the user's archive mailbox.
Next steps
For more technical details about auto-expanding archiving, see Microsoft 365: Auto-Expanding Archives FAQ.
If you're ready to enable auto-expanding archiving, see Enable auto-expanding archiving.
When auto-expanding archiving is turned on, additional storage space is automatically added to a user's archive mailbox until it reaches the storage limit of 1.5 TB. You can turn on auto-expanding archiving for everyone in your organization or just for specific users.
The archiving feature in Microsoft 365 (called auto-expanding archiving) provides up to 1.5 TB of additional storage in archive mailboxes. When the storage quota in the archive mailbox is reached, Microsoft 365 automatically (and incrementally) increases the size of the archive until the archive mailbox reaches 1.5 TB.
The first time that you run Outlook, AutoArchive is on by default and runs every 14 days. You can change how often AutoArchive runs, specify the Outlook data file (. pst) used to store archived items, and choose when items in your Outlook folders are subject to being archived.
Online Archive mailboxes are available for Office365 users with the correct license. The advantage of online archives (also known as In-Place archives), is that older emails are automatically archived in a separate archive mailbox.
The Archive folder is a way for users to keep their Inbox clean by removing items that they have dealt with but want to retain for a short period. On the other hand, the online archive is a long-term repository for information kept because we might just need it one day.
The big upside to all this is that it will reduce the overall size of your mailbox. Once that Deleted Items folder is emptied, you're no longer burdened by unnecessary emails filling up your storage space.
MRM policies are collections of policy tags that tell Exchange server how manage mail data. Some tags apply by default, such as the "Default 2 year move to archive" tag. Others are personal tags that users can chose to apply to one or more mail items, or entire folders, such as "1 Year Delete".
Archiving provides additional mailbox storage space to Microsoft 365 users. Once archiving is turned on, users can move the older messages from their primary mailbox to the archive mailbox thus freeing up primary mailbox space.
According to my research, the “In-place Archive” feature is only available with Office Professional Plus licenses or when you are using a standalone installation of Outlook.
What is the In-Place Archive? A separate mailbox outside of your regular 50 GB mailbox.Once turned on, the In-Place will automatically archive messages older than 2 years. It retains the same folder structure as your regular mailbox, so no need to sort messages.
In Outlook Online (OWA), you can see a folder group with the prefix In-Place Archive (ex: In-Place Archive – Alex Wilber). It is used to free up space in the user's primary mailbox by moving messages to the archive mailbox. Archived messages can't be discoverable from the user's primary Inbox search.
The AutoArchive feature runs automatically whenever you start Outlook. Outlook checks the AutoArchive properties of each folder by date and moves old items to your archive file. Items that are moved to the Deleted Items folder are deleted.
Depending on what backup solutions you already have in place, email archiving can speed up the process whenever your data needs to be restored. This is because the archived data takes up less space. In addition, restoring non-archived emails becomes faster and easier, because the mail server's data load is lessened.
The Archive folder is no different than any other folder that you might create and has no abilities beyond any other folder. So, the answer is that your messages will stay in the Archive folder just as long as they'd stay in the Inbox folder; that is, they'll be there until you move them elsewhere or delete them.
In the details pane, under “In-Place Archive”, will show the “Archiving” status. Click onn “Enable” if archiving is disabled. If you want to enable archiving for multiple mailbox in one go, select mailbox by either pressing Shift or Ctrl keys from the keyboard and selecting the individual mailboxes.
If you disable an archive mailbox, all information in the archive will be kept in the mailbox database until the mailbox retention time expires and the archive is permanently deleted. By default, Exchange keeps deleted mailboxes, including archive mailboxes, for 30 days.
An archive mailbox is a specialized mailbox that appears alongside the users' primary mailbox folders in Outlook or Outlook Web App. Users can access the archive in the same way that they access their primary mailboxes. In addition, they can search both their archives and primary mailboxes.
When your new messages appear to be archived, it's in fact a result of Gmail's handling of archived messages. Instead of a folder entitled "All Archive" or “Archive”, like most other email providers, Gmail has a section entitled "All Mail".
The archive file is a special type of data file, a Personal Folders file (. pst). The first time AutoArchive runs, Outlook creates the archive file automatically in the following locations: Windows 7, 8, 10, and Vista C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.
OST file contains entire mailbox data which has been gathering since your user account has been created. From then, none of the data has been deleted and OST files have become oversized creating an error “ OST file too large”. The large sized OST file contains the components such as: Hidden items.
To enable auto-expanding archiving for cloud-based archive mailboxes in an Exchange hybrid deployment, you have to run the Set-OrganizationConfig -AutoExpandingArchive command in Exchange Online PowerShell to enable auto-expanding archiving for the entire organization.
If you cannot find the AutoArchive and Archive settings in the aforementioned locations and you are working in a corporate environment, it could have been disabled by your administrator as a Group Policy.
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