Exclude Notes From Archiving in Microsoft 365

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Are users complaining about notes disappearing from their Microsoft 365 mailboxes? The reason could be retention policies, which may be automatically archiving items. In this case, users can assign personal retention tags to folders or items to prevent archiving.

This post will show you how to create a personal retention policy tag to prevent items from being moved to archive by retention policies, and how to apply the tag to the Notes folder inside the mailbox.

Requirements

• Access to a Microsoft 365 tenant.
• Your administrator account must be assigned the Retention Management role in Exchange Online. This role is already assigned to the Compliance Management, Organization Management, and Records Management group members.

Create a Personal MRM Retention Tag

To prevent the Notes folder contents from being archived, a personal retention policy tag that disables archiving must be assigned to the folder. Newer tenants may already have this retention policy tag available. If not, this section will show you how to create one.

Add the tag to Retention Policy (Administrator step)

Before users can apply the tag, as an admin you need to add it to the retention policy that is assigned to users’ mailboxes. To do this, run the following command in Exchange Online PowerShell:

# Add the new tag to an existing retention policy
Set-RetentionPolicy "Default MRM Policy" `
-RetentionPolicyTagLinks @{Add="Personal never move to archive"}

You should replace “Default MRM Policy” with the name of the policy which is assigned to users in your scenario.

Don’t forget to check which policy is assigned to user:

Get-Mailbox -Identity "user@domain.com" | Select RetentionPolicy

Note. In this tutorial I’m using MRM (Exchange retention tags), not Microsoft Purview retention policies.

Method 1: Using the Microsoft Purview Portal

1. Log in to the Microsoft Purview portal.
2. Navigate to Data lifecycle management > Exchange > MRM Retention Tags > New tag.
   

   

3. Under the Tag Name, type the name and description of the new tag and click Next.
   Name: Personal never move to archive
   Description: Prevents items from being moved to archive
   

   

4. In the Application Method, select the By users to items and folders (personal) option and click Next.
   

   

5. Under Retention Settings, select the following options and click Next.
   • Retention period: Never
   • Retention action: None / Do nothing
6. On the last step, click Submit.
   

   

7. After the tag is created, click Done.
   

   

   And you’ve successfully created the personal retention policy tag.
   

   

Method 2: Using Exchange Online PowerShell

1. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.
2. Next, run this command to create a new personal retention policy tag:
   

   New-RetentionPolicyTag `
   -Name "Personal never move to archive" `
   -Type Personal `
   -RetentionEnabled $false `
   -Comment "Prevents items from being moved to archive"

   This PowerShell command creates a personal retention tag in Exchange Online with the following properties:

   • Name: Specifies the name of the retention tag. In this case, it’s set to “Personal never move to archive”.
   • Type: Specifies the type of retention tag, either Personal or Default. In this case, it’s set to Personal.
   • RetentionEnabled: This one indicates if the retention tag is enabled. In our case, it’s set to $false, and this means no retention action will be applied. In result, items won’t be moved to the archive by retention policies.
   • Comment: Specifies an optional comment for the retention tag. In this case, it’s set to “Prevents items from being moved to archive”.
     

     

3. To confirm, run this command to list all retention tags. The new tag you created should be on the results.
   

   

Note. Check out how to add calendar permissions in Microsoft 365/Exchange via PowerShell.

Apply the Retention Tag to Prevent Notes from Being Archived

Important note. This tag must be added to mailbox retention policy in order to make users be able to apply it. The following steps demonstrating both adding the tag to the policy and how to apply it to Notes directory.

Now that you’ve made the retention tag available, users can now assign it to their respective Notes folders. But, this step is only applicable using Outlook on the Web (OWA) and not in the Outlook desktop client.

This is a known nuance of the Outlook desktop client (it does not provide a user interface to assign personal tags to folders, but it respects tags assigned through OWA).

Note that we’ve only created a retention tag and did not include it in any existing retention policies. This means that the tag we created is not a readily available option to the users, but it can be added in a few steps.

2. The user logs in to their mailbox in OWA (https://outlook.office365.com/mail).
3. Click Settings > View all Outlook settings.
   

   

4. Navigate to Mail > Retention Policies > Add new policy.
   

   

5. Select the Personal never move to archive policy and click Save.
   

   

• Now close the Outlook settings.
  

  

• To apply the retention policy, right-click on the Notes folder, click Assign policy and click Personal never move to archive.
  

  

  That’s it! The Notes folder contents are now excluded from archiving.

Conclusion

Archiving is a valuable feature in Microsoft 365 to save storage space and keep inactive items organized. But, it can also cause issues if important notes are automatically moved to the archive folder.

By following the steps outlined in the blog post, users can exclude the Notes from being archived and ensure that important information remains easily accessible.

This simple solution can help users manage their notes more efficiently and avoid any potential issues caused by automatic archiving.