Exchange Online Plan 2 Archive Limit
Chara Dagres
Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is a Microsoft 365 cloud-based, enterprise-class archiving solution for organizations that have deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2019, Microsoft Exchange Server 2016, Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, or subscribe to certain Exchange Online or Microsoft 365 plans. Exchange Online Archiving assists organizations with archiving, compliance, regulatory, and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery challenges.
As a Microsoft online service, Exchange Online Archiving is designed to help meet the need for robust security, reliability, and user productivity. For more information about Microsoft 365, including features common to all Microsoft online services, see Microsoft 365 and Office 365 platform service description.
For detailed plan information on subscriptions that enable users for Exchange Online Archiving and are currently available in European Economic Area (EEA) countries and Switzerland see the Microsoft 365 business plan comparison for EEA and Microsoft 365 Enterprise plan comparison for EEA.
1 A hybrid deployment isn't required for cloud-only organizations where no mailboxes are located on an on-premises Exchange server. However, if on-premises mailboxes exist, then hybrid deployment is required.
2 For more information, see Exchange Online limits. Exchange Online Archiving for Exchange Online add-on adds auto-expanding archiving and In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold.
3 Includes GCC, GCC-High, and DoD plans for US Government.
Looking for information about all Microsoft 365 plans? Microsoft 365 is available in various plans to best meet the needs of your organization. For information about different plans, including standalone plan options and information on moving from one plan to another, see Office 365 plan options.
The following table lists the major Exchange Online Archiving features available across plans (certain caveats apply). This table might change without notice. For more information, see the footnotes. For the most up-to-date, complete list of features, see Powerful tools to support your enterprise.
Each user who accesses the Exchange Online Archiving service must have an Exchange Online Archiving subscription. Each email archive subscription can be used only for storage of one user's messaging data.
Administrators can't adjust the storage quota. The archiving feature (called auto-expanding archiving) provides more storage space in archive mailboxes, up to a maximum of 1.5 TB. Each Exchange Online Archiving subscriber initially receives 100 GB of storage in the archive mailbox. When auto-expanding archiving is turned on, extra storage space is automatically added when the 100-GB storage capacity is reached. In Exchange hybrid deployments, auto-expanding archiving is only supported for cloud-based archive mailboxes when the on-premises user's mailbox resides on Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Server 2016, or Exchange Server 2013 SP1 and later.
Auto-expanding archive is only supported for mailboxes used for individual users or shared mailboxes with a growth rate that doesn't exceed 1 GB per day. Using journaling, transport rules, or auto-forwarding rules to copy messages to Exchange Online Archiving for the purposes of archiving isn't permitted. A user's archive mailbox is intended for just that user. Microsoft reserves the right to deny archiving in instances where a user's archive mailbox is used to store archive data for other users or in other cases of inappropriate use.
The archiving feature called auto-expanding archiving provides extra storage space in archive mailboxes. Each Exchange Online Archiving subscriber initially receives 100 GB of storage in the archive mailbox. When auto-expanding archiving is turned on, additional storage space is automatically added when the 100-GB storage capacity is reached. This incremental addition of storage space continues until the archive storage reaches 1.5 TB. In Exchange hybrid deployments, auto-expanding archiving is only supported for cloud-based archive mailboxes when the on-premises user's mailbox resides on Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Server 2016, or Exchange Server 2013 (SP1 or later). For more information, see Overview of auto-expanding archiving.
Auto-expanding archive is only supported for mailboxes used for individual users or shared mailboxes with a growth rate that does not exceed 1 GB per day. Using journaling, transport rules, or auto-forwarding rules to copy messages to Exchange Online Archiving for the purposes of archiving is not permitted. A user's archive mailbox is intended for just that user. Microsoft reserves the right to deny additional archive storage in instances where a user's archive mailbox is used to store archive data for other users or in other cases of inappropriate use.
Microsoft email services are included in nearly every Office 365 subscription plan. However, Exchange Online mailbox size limits vary from one Microsoft 365 to the other. If the limit is reached, a user may not be able to send or receive emails. The fix is to expand the size of the mailbox.
Office 365 storage limits for mailboxes are different for each subscription plan and depend on the mailbox type and license assigned to the user. At the time of writing this post, the standard mailbox size for most subscription plans is 50 gigabytes (GB).
The Office 365 mailbox size limit for the top subscription plan is 100 GB. As for archive mailboxes, Office 365 email storage limits are 50 GB for most subscription plans. High-end subscription plans include 1.5 TB of archive storage with auto-expanding capabilities.
There are three limits according to the configured mailbox storage quotas: warning limit, send limit, and send/receive limit. Users receive a notification message each time one of these limits is reached.
There are several methods to increase mailbox sizes for Office 365 users, but certain conditions must be met for each method. Otherwise, to free up mailbox storage, you need to archive old emails or delete messages. The methods that can help you avoid email storage issues in Office 365 are explained below:
Note: If you use an email client (for example, Microsoft Office Outlook) and delete email messages in the client, you need to check whether emails are also deleted on the cloud side in Outlook Online.
On the Storage page, you can see used space and the maximum mailbox storage size. Messages are categorized by colors on the diagram. The size of each email folder in Outlook Online for the current user is displayed under the diagram.
A user can move emails to the archive mailbox manually to free up mailbox storage space. However, Office 365 administrators can configure retention policies to move old emails to the archived mailbox automatically. Administrators can also configure a policy to delete old emails automatically. The default Exchange Online retention policy set after enabling archiving involves archiving emails that are older than two years.
Now you know how to check the Office 365 mailbox size limits for all users within your organization and increase them when necessary by using PowerShell. Make sure you configure these settings correctly to avoid losing important messages.
1 Year of Free Data Protection: NAKIVO Backup & Replication
NAKIVO website uses cookies for the purposes of analytics and to ensure the best browsing experience for the website visitors in accordance with our cookie policy.
You can reject cookies at any time in your browser settings.
All the shared mailboxes are running under capacity of 50 GB primary and are non affected with the recent change of Licensing and Provisioning of Shared Mailbox in Office 365 explained in this article - -shared-mailbox-provisioning-and-s...
Current situation is we have Online Archive already Turned ON for multiple shared Mailboxes which are also under control and the Highest we have reached is 90 GB for Online Archive of one of our Call Center Mailboxes (Service Desk).
1. Do we need to apply license (archive add on) for our already existing Shared Mailboxes which are non licensed and have there Archive size more than 50 and less than 100. My concern is with Online Archive only as we have setup Retention Policies to auto archive all emails beyond 180 Days.
2. Now the next question is regarding online Archive of Shared Mailboxes which are approaching 100 GB Limit. Do i need to be worried or should i go for auto expand archive function for Tenant Level (Set-OrganizationConfig -AutoExpandingArchive $true) . The reason is simple , if online archive will go beyond 100 GB Automatically for Unlicensed Shared Mailboxes I'm happy to leave the Autoexpanding for tenant level to False only. However if License would be required to go beyond 100 Gb or will there be any problems once the Online Archive hits the threshold of 100 GB and stop archiving emails.
3. Next question is for future purpose. What if i turn on Auto Expanding Archive on Tenant Level. Does that impact in any which ways to my Unlicensed Shared Mailbox Archives. I know the limits for Archives is 170 GB Max for Mailbox Plans of 50 GB (Plan 1 License or Shared Mailbox) but in this case what is Microsoft's stand for threshold of 170 GB. I'm sure we wont hit that limit in any case of Unlicensed Shared Mailboxes and are happy to clear non-standard emails/data from Online Archive of those touching the threshold of 170 GB. But question again arises regarding Licensing for these Online Archives of Unlicensed Shared Mailboxes.
Shared mailboxes using the Online Archive feature need a Exchange Online Plan 1 license, regardless of the size. It's clearly stated in the documentation: -us/library/exchange-online-limits.aspx#StorageLimits
Now the real interesting question is whether auto-expanding archives are supported with Shared mailboxes. I've never tested it, but I cant see any technical reason why it will not work. Indeed, the documentation mentions that Shared mailboxes are supported: -us/office365/securitycompliance/unlimited-archiving?redirectSourcePath...
4a15465005