How to Archive your Email Messages in Office 365 Account

Updated On - October 25, 2024 by Henry Bray | Reading Time: 6 minutes

In this article, we learn how to archive emails in Office 365 account. Mail archiving is the process of moving old or unused email messages to a separate storage location. We also read about its benefits and manual steps to archive email messages in Office 365.

Benefits of Archiving Email Messages in Office 365

• Frees up space in the mailbox.
• Helps organize emails with a clear and organized Inbox folder.
• The search option makes it easier to find specific email messages and thus enhances productivity.
• Ensures clear separation of all emails in the main mailbox.
• Archive email messages can be access from any device and location using Outlook 2013 and higher versions.
• Unlimited storage space.
• Email messages can be archived manually as well as automatically.
• Separate storage limit for primary and archive mailboxes.
• It helps avoiding confusions (if any).

Microsoft Office 365 has an inbuilt Archive Mailbox feature for storing older email messages. On archiving an email message, it is moving to Archive folder. The archived messages from the Archive folder can be access similarly as it access from a primary mailbox.

Related Blog: Manual Methods to Export Exchange Archive Mailbox to PST

4 Verified Methods to enable archive emails in Office 365

By Using Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal

Perform the following steps to enable an archive mailbox using Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal:

1. Visit Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal and sign in.
2. In the left pane of the compliance portal, select Data lifecycle management > Archive.
   On the Archive page, the Archive mailbox column identifies whether an archive mailbox is enabled or disabled for the user.
   Note: The Archive page displays information for 500 users. Use search box to find the desired username.
3. In the list of mailboxes, select the user to enable their mailbox for archiving. Click Enable archive.
4. A warning message appears stating “If you enable the archive mailbox, items in the user’s mailbox that are older than the archiving policy assigned to the mailbox will be moved to the new archive mailbox”.
5. Click Enable to confirm.
6. Creation of archive mailbox might take a few moments, once created Enabled is displayed in the Archive mailbox column for the selected user. It is recommended to refresh the page to see the change of status.

By Using Exchange Online PowerShell

Use these steps to enable an archive mailbox using Exchange Online PowerShell:

1. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.
2. Run the following command to enable the archive mailbox for a single user:
   Enable-Mailbox -Identity <username> -Archive
3. Run the following command to enable the archive mailbox for all users in your organization (whose archive mailbox is currently not enabled).
   Get-Mailbox -Filter {ArchiveGuid -Eq “00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000” -AND RecipientTypeDetails -Eq “UserMailbox”} | Enable-Mailbox -Archive

By Using Exchange Admin Center (EAC)

Following are the steps to enable an archive mailbox using Exchange Admin Center (EAC):

1. Login to your Office 365 account, click the app launcher icon, then click Admin.
2. Click Admin centers from the lower-left navigation of the Office 365 admin center, then click on Exchange option.
3. In the EAC, navigate to Recipients > Mailboxes.
4. Select a required mailbox that you want to archive, under In-Place Archive click Enable option in the details pane.
5. To perform bulk archives, select multiple mailboxes by using Shift and Ctrl keys. Click on More options in the details pane, then click Enable under Archive.
6. On Create In-Place Archive page, click OK to have Exchange automatically select a mailbox database for the archive or click Browse to specify one.

By Using Security and Compliance Center

Steps to enable an archive mailbox in the Security and Compliance Center:

1. Visit https://protection.office.com.
2. Sign in with your Microsoft Office 365 credentials.
3. In the left pane of the Security & Compliance Center, select Data governance > click Archive.
   The Archive page is displayed. A list of all the mailboxes appears that are connected to Office 365 account. The Archive mailbox column indicates whether an archive mailbox is enabled or disabled for each user.
4. In the list of mailboxes, select the user that you want to enable the archive mailbox for.
5. In the details pane for the selected user, select the mailbox for which you want to enable “Archive mailbox”. Click Enable.
6. A warning message appears as shown below. Click Yes to enable the archive mailbox.

The Archive mailbox get created successfully and the user will be able to see the archive mailbox.

How to Archive Mails in MS Outlook to Local Drive

Archive emails messages in Office 365

1. Sign into Outlook using Office 365 account.
2. Open the folder from where you want to archive emails.
   Note: This can also be done by selecting the specific emails and then click Archive on the top pane of Office 365 account.
3. Select specific emails and then right-click. Click Archive to move the selected emails to archive mailbox.

Archive Email Messages in Outlook 2016

1. Open Microsoft Outlook application.
2. Select emails to you need to archive.
3. Right-click on the selected emails.
4. Click Archive to move email messages to the Archive mailbox.

This can also be done by selecting emails and then click Archive in the Delete group of the ribbon.

You can also use the Backspace button on the keyboard to directly archive the selected email messages.
Also, this can be done by clicking File > Info > Tools > Clean Up Old Items.

Steps to Archive an Outlook Folder

1. To move an Outlook folder to archive, navigate to File > Tools > select Clean Up Old Items.
2. A window appears with all the folders of Outlook.
3. Click Archive this folder and all subfolders option.
4. Select the folder you want to move to archive.
5. For Archive items older than field, select the date from which you want to archive the email messages.
6. Select the checkbox Include items with “Do not AutoArchive” checked if you want to include the email messages that have enabled “Do not AutoArchive”.
7. Select the location where you want to save the archive file.
8. Click OK.

Steps to Automatically Archive Emails in Outlook

1. Click the File tab > click Options button.
2. In the Outlook Options wizard, click the Advanced tab.
3. Under AutoArchive, click AutoArchive Settings button.
4. The AutoArchive dialog box appears.

Run AutoArchive checkbox: Use this checkbox to turn automatic archiving of emails and other items.
In the box set the frequency to archive emails, events, and other time-bound items in Outlook.

Default Folder Settings for Archiving:

• a. Define the duration after which messages will move to an archive.
• b. The path and the name of the .pst file.

Move Old Items To: In this field, you can change the file name (archive.pst) and location, to archive Outlook items at desired location. By default, Outlook saves archived items at location:

C:\Users\<user_name>\Documents\Outlook Files\archive.pst

Click Apply these settings to all folders now to apply the new settings to all folders.

5. Click OK twice.

Archive Email Messages in Outlook 2010 and 2013

1. Launch Microsoft Outlook application.
2. Navigate to the File tab > Info > select Cleanup Tools > select Archive.
3. A window appears with all the folders of Outlook.
4. Click Archive this folder and all subfolders option.
5. Select the folder you want to move to archive.
6. For Archive items older than field, select the date from which you want to archive the email messages.
7. Select the checkbox Include items with “Do not AutoArchive” checked if you want to include the email messages that have enabled “Do not AutoArchive”.
8. Select the location where you want to save the archive file.
9. Click OK.

The archive mailbox gets saved to the provided location.

Archive Email Messages in Outlook 2007

1. Launch Microsoft Outlook application.
2. Navigate to the File tab > select Archive.
3. A window appears with all the folders of Outlook.
4. Click Archive this folder and all subfolders option.
5. Select the folder you want to move to archive.
6. For Archive items older than field, select the date from which you want to archive the email messages.
7. Select the checkbox Include items with “Do not AutoArchive” checked if you want to include the email messages that have enabled “Do not AutoArchive”.
8. Select the location where you want to save the archive file.
9. Click OK.

The archive mailbox is saved to the given location.

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Conclusion

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