How can I move Mails into the in-place archive and then have them deleted automatically

Dear @Thelen, Ralph,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum! 

Thank you again for sharing the details of your mailbox storage challenges. Based on your scenario, I’d like to recommend a practical solution that combines retention policies with optional archive expansion, you can consider trying them to see if they can help: 

Here is recommended method: using archive and deletion via MRM Retention Tags: 

You can configure a single retention policy that includes: 

• A tag to move items to the archive after a set period (e.g., 1 year). 
• A tag to permanently delete items after a longer period (e.g., 2 years). 

This ensures that emails are archived first, then automatically deleted after their retention period expires. This method works well with shared mailboxes and avoids the limitations of retention labels. 

Please take a look in this link for more details: Customize an archive and deletion policy (MRM) for mailboxes | Microsoft Learn 

Additionally, this is optional method that you can use together with the method above: Enable Auto-Expanding Archive. 

You may consider enabling auto-expanding archives, which gradually increase archive capacity up to 1.5 TB. However, please note: 

• The expansion is not immediate. 
• The mailbox must consume its current archive quota before additional space is provisioned. 
• Expansion occurs in 10 GB increments, so the mailbox grows gradually as needed. 

You can consult in this link for more details: Enable auto-expanding archiving | Microsoft Learn 

I hope this information can help you in this case. Wish you a pleasant day! 

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Hello @Thelen, Ralph,

I completely understand your frustration — you’re definitely not alone in running into this limitation with Exchange Online.

You’re right: the classic “archive-then-delete” lifecycle that worked perfectly on-premises doesn’t translate cleanly to the cloud. Since Microsoft 365 only allows one retention policy per mailbox and the archive itself doesn’t accept a separate retention tag, managing long-term cleanup can be tricky.

That said, there are a few supported workarounds:

1. Use Microsoft Purview retention labels (auto-apply policies) You can create a retention label that targets archived content by age and automatically deletes items after a set period. This works across both primary and archive mailboxes and doesn’t require user intervention. It does require an E5 or equivalent add-on license.

Enable Auto-Expanding Archive If your main concern is space rather than retention, enabling auto-expanding archive ensures the archive never runs out of space (it now scales up to 1.5 TB+ per mailbox). This option alone solves the majority of storage-related issues.

If deletion is mandatory: You can still perform periodic cleanup using the Compliance Center PowerShell module with New-ComplianceSearch and New-ComplianceSearchAction. Example:

New-ComplianceSearch -Name "ArchiveCleanup" -ExchangeLocation "******@domain.com" -ContentMatchQuery 'Received<2022-01-01'
New-ComplianceSearchAction -SearchName "ArchiveCleanup" -Purge -PurgeType HardDelete

This allows you to purge older messages directly from archives in a compliant and auditable way.

Summary:

If you just need more room → enable auto-expanding archive.

If you need automated cleanup → use Purview retention or Compliance Search purges.

Unfortunately, Exchange Online still doesn’t support a combined “move to archive then delete after X years” MRM policy natively, but the above methods achieve the same lifecycle control.

Hope this clarifies the available paths — let me know if you’d like an example script for scheduled clean-ups.

Best regards, Nicolas Bourdeau CEO & Microsoft 365 Architect Wintive LLC | Microsoft Partner ✉ **@wintive.com | 🌍 United States & FranceHello,

I completely understand your frustration — you’re definitely not alone in running into this limitation with Exchange Online.

You’re right: the classic “archive-then-delete” lifecycle that worked perfectly on-premises doesn’t translate cleanly to the cloud. Since Microsoft 365 only allows one retention policy per mailbox and the archive itself doesn’t accept a separate retention tag, managing long-term cleanup can be tricky.

That said, there are a few supported workarounds:

Use Microsoft Purview retention labels (auto-apply policies)
You can create a retention label that targets archived content by age and automatically deletes items after a set period. This works across both primary and archive mailboxes and doesn’t require user intervention. It does require an E5 or equivalent add-on license.

Enable Auto-Expanding Archive
If your main concern is space rather than retention, enabling auto-expanding archive ensures the archive never runs out of space (it now scales up to 1.5 TB+ per mailbox). This option alone solves the majority of storage-related issues.

If deletion is mandatory:
You can still perform periodic cleanup using the Compliance Center PowerShell module with New-ComplianceSearch and New-ComplianceSearchAction.
Example:

New-ComplianceSearch -Name "ArchiveCleanup" -ExchangeLocation "******@domain.com" -ContentMatchQuery 'Received<2022-01-01'
New-ComplianceSearchAction -SearchName "ArchiveCleanup" -Purge -PurgeType HardDelete

This allows you to purge older messages directly from archives in a compliant and auditable way.

Summary:

If you just need more room → enable auto-expanding archive.

If you need automated cleanup → use Purview retention or Compliance Search purges.

Unfortunately, Exchange Online still doesn’t support a combined “move to archive then delete after X years” MRM policy natively, but the above methods achieve the same lifecycle control.

Hope this clarifies the available paths — let me know if you’d like an example script for scheduled clean-ups.

Best regards,
Nicolas Bourdeau
CEO & Microsoft 365 Architect
Wintive LLC | Microsoft Partner
www.wintive.com

Retention policies can contain (default) tags for both "archive" and "delete" actions. In your scenario, you can use say a "1 year archive" tag along with "2 years delete" one. Any item that falls under the scope of the tag will first be moved to the archive after reaching 1 year of age, be kept in the archive mailbox for 1 more year and deleted afterwards.

I'd recommend using default tags for this, as this way the setup process is easier. If for some reason you need more granular controls, you will have to use personal tags, as the folder-level ones cannot be used for archiving. In turn, this means that you will have to programmatically assign the personal tags via EWS to any items/folders in question. With the incoming deprecation of EWS and the Graph API still lagging in this area, you might run into some issues in the future... so best stick to using default tags where possible.