Microsoft has just announced that it is extending the period in which it retains deleted emails in Office 365. Previously, if you moved an email to the Deleted folder, it would disappear after 30 days. This has now been extended to indefinitely by default and can be set by the Office 365 Administrator. Office 365 Administrators can also create custom retention policies for email.
If you are an Office 365 administrator, this means we’ll be updating the Default MRM Policy for everyone using Exchange Online over the next month. As an administrator, you also have control over this behavior. If you want to keep the 30-day policy or set a custom retention period, that can be done as well and you don’t even need to wait for the change. Also, if you have already created a custom MRM policy, (as long as it has a name other than “Default MRM Policy”), you don’t need to do anything and the change will not impact you.
