Turn off or suspend messaging records management

Applies to: Exchange Server 2013

To meet individual, IT, or business requirements, you may need to turn off or temporarily suspend messaging records management (MRM) for an individual user or for a Mailbox server. Reasons you may need to turn off or suspend MRM include:

• If a mailbox user is away from the office or is otherwise unable to access e-mail, you can temporarily disable MRM for the mailbox by placing it on retention hold. When a mailbox is on retention hold, it's no longer processed by the Managed Folder Assistant. When the mailbox user returns or is able to access the mailbox again, you can remove the retention hold from the mailbox.

• If you need to test or troubleshoot performance issues, you can temporarily turn off MRM on that server by clearing the schedule for the Managed Folder Assistant.

• If you need to remove a retention tag from mailboxes (which have a retention policy with that tag applied), you can remove the tag from the policy.

• If you want a retention policy or a managed folder mailbox policy to no longer apply to a mailbox, you can remove the policy from the mailbox.

• If your organization decides not to use MRM features, you can turn off MRM permanently for the entire organization. If you later decide to deploy MRM, you have the ability to do so.

What do you need to know before you begin?

• Estimated time to complete: 1 minute

• Procedures in this topic require specific permissions. See each procedure for its permissions information.

• For information about keyboard shortcuts that may apply to the procedures in this topic, see Keyboard shortcuts in the Exchange admin center.

Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange forums. Visit the forums at Exchange Server.

Place mailboxes on retention hold

You can place mailboxes on retention hold to turn off MRM temporarily (for example when users are on vacation). This suspends the processing of retention policies for the mailbox until retention hold is disabled. This is different from placing mailboxes on In-Place Hold or litigation hold.

For details about how to place a mailbox on retention hold, see Place a mailbox on retention hold.

To learn more about In-Place Hold and litigation hold, see In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold.

Remove retention tags from mailboxes

To remove a retention tag from a mailbox, you unlink the tag from the retention policy. When you unlink a retention policy tag (RPT) for a default folder, the default mailbox tag applies to all items in that folder. When you unlink a personal tag, it's no longer available to the user. Tags applied to existing messages will continue to be processed unless you remove the tag from the Exchange organization.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Messaging records management" entry in the Messaging policy and compliance permissions topic.

This Shell example unlinks the retention tag Delete - 3 Days from the retention policy Corp-Users.

$tags = (Get-RetentionPolicy "Corp-Users").RetentionPolicyTagLinks
$tags -= "Deleted Items - 3 Days"
Set-RetentionPolicy "Corp-Users" -RetentionPolicyTagLinks $tags

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Get-RetentionPolicy and Set-RetentionPolicy.

Remove retention policies from mailboxes

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Apply retention policies" entry in the Messaging policy and compliance permissions topic.

You can stop a retention policy from applying to a mailbox by removing the policy from the mailbox user's properties.

This Shell example removes the retention policy from the mailbox jpeoples.

Set-Mailbox jpeoples -RetentionPolicy $null.

This Shell example removes the retention policy from all mailboxes in the Exchange organization.

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter "RetentionPolicy -ne `$null" | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy $null

This Shell example removes the retention policy Corp-Finance from all mailbox users who have the policy applied.

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter "RetentionPolicy -eq 'Corp-Finance'" | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy $null

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-Mailbox and Get-Mailbox.

Turn off MRM permanently for an entire organization

To turn off MRM for an organization, delete all retention tags and retention policies except for the ArbitrationMailbox policy, which is created by Exchange Setup. After this is complete, retention policies aren't enforced.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Messaging records management" entry in the Messaging policy and compliance permissions topic.

This example removes all delete tags from an Exchange organization except the Never Delete tag, which is used in the ArbitrationMailbox policy created by Exchange Setup.

Get-RetentionPolicyTag | ? {$_.RetentionAction -ne "MoveToArchive" -and $_.Name -ne "Never Delete"} | Remove-RetentionPolicyTag

This example removes all retention tags except the Never Delete tag.

Get-RetentionPolicyTag | ? {$_.Name -ne "Never Delete"} | Remove-RetentionPolicyTag

This command removes the Corp-Users retention policy from an Exchange organization.

Remove-RetentionPolicy Corp-Users

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see the following topics:

• Get-RetentionPolicyTag

• Remove-RetentionPolicyTag

• Remove-RetentionPolicy