Modifying the default retention policy- Microsoft SC-400 Certification
By Isabella Morgan / December 10, 2022 / No Comments / ADDITIONAL RESOURCES, IBM and Microsoft Exams, OneDrive for Business
Administrators can use both the Exchange Admin Center and Exchange Online PowerShell module to amend existing retention policies.
The following lab exercise we will modify the Default MRM policy from within the Exchange Admin Center:
- Browse to the Exchange Admin Center at https://outlook.office365.com/ecp and sign in with an account that has Exchange Administrator permissions.
- Click on Compliance management and then Retention policies from the top windowpane.
- Choose Default MRM Policy and then click on the edit button (pencil icon).
- Utilize the + and – (plus and minus) buttons to add or delete retention tags to the policy. Click on Save when finished:

Figure 11.13 – Edit the default retention policy
All users who have the retention policy assigned automatically get these updates. As mentioned earlier in this section, you also have the option of changing the default retention policy using the Exchange Online PowerShell module. This can be achieved by utilizing the following cmdlets:
- To show the existing default retention policy, use the following cmdlet:
Get-RetentionPolicy -Identity “Default MRM Policy”
2. To get an overview of all the retention tags that are linked to the default policy, use the following cmdlet:
(Get-RetentionPolicy -Identity “Default MRM Policy”).RetentionPolicyTagLinks
3. If you want to assign specific retention tags to the policy, utilize the following cmdlet:
Set-RetentionPolicy -Identity “Default MRM Policy” -RetentionPolicyTagLinks “1 Year Delete”,”5 Year Delete”,”Recoverable Items 14 days move to archive”
In this section, we have discussed implementing retention policies and tags in Microsoft Exchange. There were multiple exercises in this section, and it is strongly recommended that you follow these and complete them.
In the next section, we will take a look at applying mailbox holds in Microsoft Exchange.
Applying mailbox holds in Microsoft Exchange
There are multiple ways in which organizations can prevent data in mailboxes from being deleted in Microsoft 365. Exchange Online provides a feature called holds that enables this functionality, as well as retention policies and labels that we have already discussed in the Implementing retention policies and tags in Microsoft Exchange section of this chapter.
Exchange Online has two different type of mailbox holds:
- Litigation hold: This prevents any content that is stored in the mailbox from being deleted and is set on a mailbox level.
- eDiscovery hold: This prevents mailbox data that matches a specific search criterion from being purged or modified and it is created in an eDiscovery case.
Applying a litigation hold
In this section, we will run through an exercise to apply a litigation hold on a mailbox from the Exchange Admin Center and Exchange Online PowerShell module:
- Browse to the Exchange Admin Center at https://outlook.office365.com/ecp and sign in with an account that has Exchange Administrator permissions.
- Click on recipients > mailboxes in the left-hand pane:

Figure 11.14 – Recipients > mailboxes
3. Choose the mailbox you wish to set litigation on and then click on Edit (the pencil icon).
4. On the Properties page of the mailbox, click on mailbox features.
5. Browse to Litigation hold: Disabled and click on Enable to set a litigation hold on this mailbox:

Figure 11.15 – Enabling a litigation hold
To complete the same task via the Exchange Online PowerShell module, use the following cmdlet:
Set-Mailbox <username> -LitigationHoldEnabled $true
To amend the number of days to put mailbox data on hold for, utilize the following cmdlet:
Set-Mailbox <username> -LitigationHoldEnabled $true -LitigationHoldDuration <number of days>
Please note, <username> should be the user’s Microsoft 365 FQDN and <number of days> is the numerical value of days you want to set for the litigation hold duration.
In the next section, we will look at how to implement archiving policies for Microsoft Exchange Online mailboxes.