admin | Modified: January 6th, 2025 | Office 365
Have trouble managing your Office 365 mailbox? Look no further! Explore the step-by-step instructions on how to enable and disable archive Office 365 using both EAC and PowerShell commands. In the end, you’ll have the answer to enable or disable online archiving in Exchange Online efficiently.
Due to its advanced features and collaboration services, many organizations are increasingly relying on Microsoft Office 365. One of its key features is mailbox archiving, which provides additional storage space for mailboxes. The archive mailbox is used to store older messages, helping users manage their mailbox data more efficiently. When enabled, the archive mailbox becomes a secondary storage location for older emails.
By default, the In-Place Archiving policy is disabled for all mailboxes. However, users can activate the In-Place Archive policy in Office 365, and their old email messages will be automatically stored in the archive mailbox. Users can then access the archived emails through Outlook Web App (In-Place Archive) and desktop Outlook (Online Archive).
Before we discuss the steps to enable and disable archive Office 365, we should know that Exchange Online Plan 2 offers unlimited In-Place archival storage space whereas Exchange Online Plan 1 offers limited storage space. Understanding these differences helps to choose any of them for archiving efficiently. Here’s a detailed comparison:
1. Exchange Online Plan 2 – Unlimited In-Place Archival Storage
2. Exchange Online Plan 1 – Limited In-Place Archival Storage
Read More: Microsoft PST Collection Tool
There are two main ways to disable or enable archive mailbox Office 365 i.e. EAC and PowerShell, and the following sections describe the details of them with step-by-step instructions:
The Exchange Admin Center (EAC) provides a simple and user-friendly graphical interface for managing Office 365 settings. Here’s how to use EAC to enable and disable in-place archive mailbox:
Steps for Enabling
Important Note: Users can also create archive mailboxes in Office 365 in bulk by selecting multiple mailboxes. It can be done using Shift and Ctrl keys to select several mailboxes at one time. Then, click on More Options on the right section and select the Enable option under In-Place archive.
Steps to disable Archive Office 365
First, you must connect Exchange Online using Windows PowerShell. For the same go through these cmdlets:
$UserCredential = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session
set-executionpolicy remotesigned
Get-Mailbox
Now, you are ready to enable archive mailbox PowerShell. So, run this command to initiate the task:
Enable-Mailbox -Identity "Lindsey Smith" –Archive
The above command enables archival for Lindsey Smith’s mailbox only. However, users can implement the following command to activate archival for all mailboxes:
PowerShell Command to Disable In-Place Archive Mailbox Office 365
The following command can help users to disable the archival policy of a mailbox:
Disable-Mailbox -Identity "Lindsey Smith" -Archive
Now, run the following command to check whether archived mailboxes are disabled or not:
Get-Mailbox -Identity "ravi" | Format-List *Archive*
So, above we learned to enable and disable archive Office 365 using PowerShell for the Exchange server. But those who are looking for the same task in the Exchange Online can go through the following sections.
Disabling or enabling online archive Office 365 is different from In-Place Archive, and the instructions for the same are as follows-
Method 1. Microsoft 365 Admin Center
Enable Online Archiving:
Disable Online Archiving:
Method 2. Disable or Enable Online Archive Office 365 PowerShell
Enable Online Archiving:
$UserCredential = Get-Credential$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection -Credential $UserCredentialImport-PSSession $Session -DisableNameChecking
Enable-Mailbox -Identity "user@example.com" -Archive
Disable Online Archiving:
Disable-Mailbox -Identity "user@example.com" -Archive
Here are some scenarios where enabling or disabling the archive mailbox might make sense:
When to Enable Archive Mailbox:
When to Disable Archive Mailbox:
Managing the archive mailbox in Office 365 is a crucial part of email management. Enabling or disabling the archive mailbox can help organizations to manage their data efficiently. In this complete walkthrough, we learned both EAC and PowerShell methods to enable and disable archive Office 365. Understanding when to enable or when to disable archive mailbox is the key to the improved performance of the Exchange data.
1. Can I enable archive for multiple users at once in Office 365?
Yes, with the PowerShell solution, one can efficiently archive multiple users simultaneously.
2. Will disabling the archive delete the archived emails?
No, disabling the archive mailbox will not affect archived emails, your data is saved in the archive folder.
3. Can users access archived emails after the archive mailbox is disabled?
Yes, previously archived emails will still be accessible even after disabling the archive mailbox.