Mailbox archiving is a feature providing users with increased mailbox quota.
The auto-expanding archive feature enables this additional quota to be added automatically to a user’s archive mailbox. Its benefits include:
- Helping users to streamline their inbox
- Automatically managing which folders & data to transfer into the archive mailbox
Auto-Expanding Archive can be enabled for individual users, or at an organisation-wide level for all users. For each user, this feature works in the same way.
If a mailbox has used 90GB of the standard 100GB online archive capacity and auto-expanding archive has been switched on, the archive mailbox will automatically change to an auto-expanding archive. From this point onwards, additional quota will be provisioned with the maximum quota an archive mailbox can reach being 1.5TB.
The process to provision additional quota can take up to 30 days.
NHSmail is designed for the exchange of information and is not a storage solution. Archiving should be carried out in line with your local policy and process as outlined in Section 3 of the NHSmail Acceptable User Policy .
Enable Auto-Expanding Archive Mailbox for a User
1. To enable this feature, first mark the the checkbox of “Enable Auto-Expanding Archive Mailbox” checkbox.
2. Once the dialog box has appeared, select ‘Confirm’ to proceed. Clicking ‘Cancel’ will close the dialog box if you do not wish to proceed.
3. After this feature has been enabled, it cannot be disabled. Therefore, this checkbox cannot be unmarked.
Enable Auto-Expanding Archive Mailbox at an Organisation-Wide Level
1. To enable this feature, within the “Settings” tab, turn the “Enable Auto-Expanding Archive Mailboxes for All Users” toggle to the ON position.
2. After setting the “Enable Auto-Expanding Archive Mailboxes for All Users” toggle to the ON position, select ‘Save Changes’ to trigger the enablement of this feature.
3. Once the dialog box has appeared, select ‘Confirm’ to proceed. Clicking ‘Cancel’ will close the dialog box if you do not wish to proceed.
4. On next viewing the organisation page, the “Enable Auto-Expanding Archive Mailboxes for All Users” should be set to the ON position. Once enabled, this feature is permanent.
Considerations for Enabling the Auto-Expanding Archive
Before enabling the auto-expanding archive feature, please consider the following:
- This setting can only be applied to licensed accounts. It cannot be applied to Shared & Resource Mailboxes.
- Enablement has no impact on the use of a user’s archive mailbox.
- Once enabled for an account, this feature is permanent and cannot be disabled.
- Once enabled, the account cannot be restored or recovered in the event of deletion. To recover an auto-expanding archive mailbox, a service request can be made for a forensic extract on the account but this data can only be recovered to another account i.e. a new or existing mailbox for this user. Following this, a process can be triggered to begin to recover these items.
- No further forensics can be performed for a 24-hour period if Microsoft’s 2TB daily limit has been hit.
- Org wide enablement of auto-expanding archives should only be taken with senior stakeholder approval/sign-off.
- It can take up to 30 days for additional quota to be provisioned.
- To access messages stored in an auto-expanded archive mailbox, users must use one of the following Outlook clients:
- Outlook as a part of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (previously name Office 365 ProPlus
- Outlook as part of Microsoft 365 Apps for business (previously named Office 365 Business)
- Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2019 for Windows
- Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2019 for Mac
- Outlook on the Web (OWA)
Related Links
| Last Reviewed Date | 27/09/2022 |
