Granikos Technology Blog

Exchange Server and Exchange Online use retention policies to group retention tags. A retention tag defines how and when Exchange should delete a mailbox object automatically or move it to the archive mailbox. Most of the time, you think of emails when talking about Exchange mailbox objects. We stay with emails for this article.

Sometimes, retention policies show an unexpected behavior, and you want to clean up the retention information from a mailbox.

To understand how to clean up the policies, we need to know the basics.

Policy tags: Default tags and Personal tags

Default tags and personal tags specify what the Managed Folder Assistant should do with the emails. You assign one or more retention tags to a retention policy. You then assign the retention policy to a mailbox.

Default tags are assigned to the whole mailbox. End users can set personal tags to folders or single elements. The third tag, the default folder tag, is primarily used in delete policies.

Retention policy

A retention policy can have one or more default or personal retention tags. A single mailbox can only have one policy assigned.

The following screenshot shows the default retention policies for user and arbitration mailboxes, and two additional test policies.

If you want to know more about retention tags and policies, I recommend reading the Microsoft documentation.

Cleaning up retention tags in an Exchange mailbox

But what exactly would we like to remove from a mailbox?

• Policy Tags and Personal Policy Tags

Removing a retention policy from a mailbox is simple. You replace the assigned policy with another policy, or you set the attribute to $null to remove the policy assignment. Removing or replacing a retention policy does not remove personal tags assigned to folders by the user.

If you want to remove a personal tag from a mailbox, Microsoft has the answer for you:

• Purge the tag from the Exchange Organization

But what if other users in your Exchange organization also use this personal tag? Deleting a personal retention tag from the Exchange Organization will remove this tag from all mailboxes.

Solution

Supposed you have a delete policy (default tag) set on a mailbox. Also, you allow the user to exclude folders with a personal tag. Removing this personal tag for all mailboxes will lead to significant calls for your helpdesk because the Managed Folder Assistant will delete all emails from all mailboxes. Not to say that you must restore the mails.

But help is on the way. The tool RemovePersonalRetentionTag helps you cleaning up retention tags.

• GitHub Link

With this tool, you can remove one or more personal tags from the folders in a single mailbox without deleting the tag from your Exchange Organization.

You need impersonation rights for the mailbox you want to clean up. And basic authentication needs to be enabled for Exchange Online if the mailbox is an EXO mailbox. At this time, the code uses Exchange Web Services to remove retention tags.

If you want to remove all personal tags from a mailbox, it is simple:

RemovePersonalRetentionTag.exe -mailbox "user@example.com" -impersonate

If you want to remove a specific tag, you must know the retention tag id.

First, grab a list of the retention tag ids in your environment:

• Execute in an Exchange (Online) PowerShell session

Get-RetentionPolicyTag -Types Personal | Select Name,RetentionId | ft -a

• Remove a single tag

RemovePersonalRetentionTag.exe -mailbox "user@example.com" -impersonate -retentionid "a7966968-dadf-4df7-ae87-4482686b4634"

• Or multiple tags

RemovePersonalRetentionTag.exe -mailbox "user@example.com" -impersonate -retentionid "a7966968-dadf-4df7-ae87-4482686b4634, 414c6a14-3ed5-432e-9edb-c6620a8278f0"

This tool is very useful when personal MRM policies are assigned to system folders like “Yammer.”

Am 28. Mai 2020 findet das nächste Treffen der Exchange User Group in diesem Jahr statt.

Wir treffen uns, aus gegebenem Anlass, online. Das Meetup findet als Microsoft Teams Meeting statt.

Agenda

• Neues aus der Community
• Zwischenergebnisse der EOL-Umfrage (Evgenij)
• Exchange Hybrid – Was ist das? Warum brauche ich das? Wie geht das? (Thomas)
• Exchange FAQ (Community)
• Exchange Server – On-Premises Zukunft (Thomas)

Die Anmeldung zur unseren Meetup ist hier möglich: https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/EXUSG-DE/events/266646042/. 

• Der Link zum Online Meeting in Microsoft Teams wird in den Meetup Informationen veröffentlicht.
   

Wir sehen uns.

Präsentation 

Meine Präsentation Exchange Hybrid – Was ist das? Warum brauche ich das? Wie geht das? ist bei SlideShare verfügbar.

Am 27. & 28. Mai 2020 findet der Microsoft 365 Virtual Marathon statt. 

Während des 36-stündigen Marathons finden durchgehend Sessions statt, deren Speaker auf der ganzen Welt verteilt sind. Du kannst jederzeit mitmachen.

• 300+ Speaker
• 400+ Sessions
• Keynotes von Jeff Teper, Naomi Moneypenny, Bill Baer, Jon Levesque, Laurie Pottmeyer und Michael Holste
• Sessions in Englisch und zusätzlich in 6 weiteren Sprachen
  • Französisch, Spanisch, Japanisch, Koreanisch, Deutsch, Portugiesisch 
• Hashtag für den Marathon: #M365VM

Die virtuelle Konferenz ist kostenlos und findet in Zusammenarbeit mit der SharePoint Conference NA.

Meine Session beim Microsoft 365 Virtual Marathon ist zum Thema:

• Exchange Hybrid - What, Why, and How
• Mittwoch, 27. Mai
• 23:00 Uhr

Die vollständige Agenda findest du hier: http://www.m365virtualmarathon.com/sessions.html

Link

• Registrierung zum Microsoft 365 Virtual Marathon

Viel Spaß!

Adnan Rafique is a Collaboration Architect for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365. He is a subject matter expert in this area since the days of Exchange Server 2007.

He reached out to me to record an interview on Office 365, the impact of cloud technologies to the daily operations of IT administrators, and the requirement for life-long learning.

Here is the recording, available on Adnan's YouTube Channel. Enjoy.

Video-Link: https://go.granikos.eu/iMentorCloudFeb2020

A future interview will cover Microsoft Teams and how it helps to transform the way your work.

Links

• Reach out to Adnan via Twitter: @iMentorCloud
• Visit his website: http://www.exchangeitpro.com/

Am 23. Januar 2020 findet das erste Treffen der Exchange User Group in diesem Jahr statt.

Wir treffen uns in den Räumlichkeiten der COMPAREX AG.

Agenda

• Neues aus der Community
• Ist meine Server gesund? Gesundheit eines Exchange Servers zuverlässig bewerten - Evgenij
• Pause und Snacks
• Die Zukunft von Exchange Server On-Premises - Was passiert nach 2025?
• Networking und Austausch

Die Anmeldung zur unseren Meetup ist hier möglich: https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/EXUSG-DE/events/266646039/. 

• Ort: COMPARX AG - A SoftwareONE Company
  Rudower Chaussee 13, Berlin
• Tag: 23. Januar 2020
• Zeit: 18:00 Uhr
• Weitere Informationen und Anmeldung 
   

Wir sehen uns.