For very large Exchange mailboxes (8 GB or more), older items (e-mails, calendars) should be moved from the user mailbox to an archive mailbox either by archiving rule (policy) or manually by drag and drop for performance reasons.

An online archive is an MS Exchange Premium feature. It must be requested from the ServiceDesk by e-mail. Once the online archive has been made available, the items in the mailbox concerned that are older than 2 years are automatically archived (standard archiving policy). Users see both the usage mailbox and the online archive in MS Outlook and Outlook Web App after logging in to the mailbox.

Important to know: Viewing the online archive is only possible with the OWA web interface, stand-alone versions of MS Outlook and MS Office Professional Plus versions.

MS Outlook

The default archiving policy is customizable in MS Outlook. It can be configured for the entire mailbox or for individual folders.

Settings for the entire mailbox

  1. Select the Outlook account name for which the online archive is to be configured. Via the context menu (e.g. right mouse click on Outlook account name) select the command "Data file properties".

    Explanatory screenshot to the previous description
    Screenshot of the account context menu in MS Outlook
     

  2. Within the "Properties" window select the "Policies" tab.

    Screenshot of data file properties window in MS Outlook with marker on policy
    Screenshot of the properties window in MS Outlook

  3. In the section "Online archive" (second of two items, in the lower part of the window) you specify after how much time elements are moved to the archive. To do this, you need to open the pull-down menu.

    Explanatory screenshot for the previous description with marker on the pull-down menu for policy setting of the online archive
    Screenshot of the policy settings of an account with online archive in MS Outlook

  4. Select the desired archiving policy from the options (Options: Parent folder policy, 2 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, Never).

    Explanatory screenshot to the previous description
    Screenshot of the policy settings with archiving choices

Individual settings for specific folders

To set the archiving policies of individual folders, first decide whether there are folders that should be excluded from archiving.

Archiving for individual folders only

  1. Set the archiving policy to "Never" for the entire mailbox.

  2. In the specific mailbox, select the folder for which items are to be archived.

  3. Open the "Context menu" of the folder (for example via the right mouse click) and select "Properties".

  4. In the properties, switch to the "Policies" tab and select the archiving policy under Online archive.

  5. Select the next folder to be configured and repeat the steps until all folders are configured as desired.

Different archiving periods for individual folders

  1. In the specific mailbox, select the folder for which items are to be archived.

  2. Open the "Context menu" of the folder (for example via the right mouse click) and select "Properties".

  3. In the properties, switch to the "Policies" tab and select the archiving policy under Online archive.

  4. Select the next folder to be configured and repeat the steps until all folders are configured as desired.