For all mail-user recipient types, any Hold settings are ignored and have no effect on hard-deletions or soft-deletions. If there is any type of hold on the mailbox, then the mailbox can't be deleted. The above deletion scenarios assume that the user mailbox isn't in any of the hold states, like Litigation hold or eDiscovery hold. A soft-deleted mailbox is deleted using Remove-Mailbox -PermanentlyDelete.All mailbox content such as emails, contacts, and files are permanently deleted. If in the 30-day period a new Azure Active Directory user is synchronized from the original recipient account with the same ExchangeGuid or ArchiveGuid, and that new account is licensed for Exchange Online, this will result in a hard deletion of the original user mailbox. The user mailbox is now soft-deleted in Exchange Online and stays in a soft-deleted state for 30 days. The user account associated with the user mailbox has been hard-deleted from the Azure Active Directory.The user mailbox has been soft-deleted for more than 30 days, and the associated Azure Active Directory user has been hard-deleted.The user mailbox's associated Azure Active Directory user account has been purged within the last 30 days which is the maximum retention length Exchange Online will keep the mailbox in a soft-deleted state before it is permanently purged and unrecoverable.Ī hard-deleted user mailbox is a mailbox that has been deleted in one of the following ways:.The user mailbox's associated Azure Active Directory user account has been hard-deleted but the Exchange Online mailbox is under a litigation hold or eDiscovery hold.The user mailbox's associated Azure Active Directory user account is soft-deleted (the user object is out of scope or in the recycle bin container).A mailbox can become soft-deleted in any of the following ways:

Soft-deleted and hard-deleted mailboxesĪ soft-deleted user mailbox is a mailbox that has been deleted using the Microsoft 365 admin center or the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet and has still been in the Azure Active Directory recycle bin for less than 30 days. This applies to both mailboxes and items within a mailbox.

Within Exchange Online, there are two kinds of deletions: soft deletions and hard deletions.

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