microsoft-office-365
We have deleted a user account (and subsequently their Exchange Online mailbox) in our Office 365 organization.
We didn't feel there was a need to export their Outlook OST contents to a PST file for local archiving.
Now there is a need to restore their mailbox and find some emails they've received before their account was deleted.
What options do we have at this point to get the mailbox restored?
This is a great question, since we recently migrated to Office 365 from an on-prem Exchange server.
For us, what caused us to question this is the 49.5 GB of mailbox space -- and the desire to get rid of offline archives. I mean, really, if you don't need to archive, do you really want a cached mailbox that's nearly 50 GB in size? Heck no!
Not to mention whatever you archive is outside the control of IT. If a user loses it, and it hasn't been backed up, it's GONE.
For us, we also wanted the flexibility to be able to have all the laptop users access some cached data so they can easily work while on a plane or otherwise offline.
Our answer applies to Outlook 2013 users:
When setting up the user account in Outlook 2013, you get to choose how much data you want to cache based on a timeline. In the Server Settings =>> Offline Settings select "Use Cached Exchange Mode" and pick how many months (up to six in our case) that you want to cache locally. For us, the magic number was two months.
One extra benefit with Outlook 2013: the cached file is said to be 40% smaller than the cached files created in earlier versions. Now I can have a 50 GB mailbox, avoid the pain of missing archive files -- and still offer the convenience for travelling workers to be able to work offline if they want to. I say that's a good deal!
BTW, if they're not showing the image in this post, try going to
OK, figured it out.
If this happens to you, chances are it is probably what my user was experiencing and what I had to decipher.
The picture in the OP is as accurate as OWA can get it, but it isn't "true". The actual contact wasn't deleted at all (confused yet by the pic? me too)...but instead it exists in the Conflicts folder under Sync Issues. In the case of my user, he had 3 different Sync Issues folders.
Looking in the Conflicts folder(s) I found multiple contacts from the past 6 months.
WHY?
It would appear to be a known syncing issue between Outlook/Exchange and Outlook 2011 for Mac. Further complicating it, the user has an iPhone syncing email, plus 2 other Macs that also have Outlook 2011 installed and syncing.
So, I restored the latest conflict contact for the user. There isn't a great way to prevent this type of syncing issue, short of limiting the user to a single email client.
However, this does at least explain why the OWA interface looked messed up and where the contact truly did exist, which wasn't where OWA was showing it to exist.
FOR REFERENCE INFO:
Conflicts Contains all the multiple copies of conflicting items in your mailbox. An InfoBar at the top of the original item advises you that a conflict for this item exists. The conflicting item is stored in the Conflicts folder. Clicking the InfoBar will bring up a list of conflicting items and allow you to resolve the conflict by determining which item you want to keep.
If you have made changes to an item, but are not seeing the updated item in your Navigation Pane folders, check for an InfoBar notice at the top of the item. If you cannot find the original item, check the Conflicts folder. It is possible that your changes caused a conflict with the original item, and the changes will exist in the Conflicts folder. - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/synchronization-error-folders-HP010102440.aspx
Best Answer
(NOTE: Microsoft is constantly updating the feature sets of Exchange Online. This information may become dated but was accurate in the fall of 2014. If you notice any differences with the way MS is handling mailboxes of a deleted user as you read this please leave a comment and I will update the answer.)
I'll only cover the options within the scope of the administrative options of Office 365 itself. If you have 3rd party offerings or solutions in place you'll need to contact them for assistance.
First, we have to determine if the deleted mailbox still falls within the retention period.
For Office 365, this period is 30 days by default from mailbox deletion date. After 30 days, the mailbox is permanently deleted and is not recoverable. If you are within this retention period you can follow this Technet article for steps on restoring the mailbox: Delete or Restore User Mailboxes in Exchange Online .
If you are outside the retention period, you cannot recover the deleted mailbox...UNLESS you have enabled a feature Microsoft refers to as Inactive Mailboxes. This is accomplished by having the mailbox on either Litigation Hold or In-Place Hold prior to deleting the mailbox.
Manage inactive mailboxes in Exchange Online states:
IMPORTANT: Make sure the hold is in place BEFORE deleting the mailbox. Personally, I recommend you setup all of your mailboxes with Litigation Hold (instead of In-Place Hold) when you create their accounts to begin with. This allows full recovery of any mailbox item at any time which is beneficial with deleted items after a year, etc.
If the mailbox falls into the category of an Inactive Mailbox then you can recover items in those mailboxes by one of two ways.
Option #1 - In-Place E-Discovery
Option #2 - Restore entire mailbox
Inside the Exchange admin portal, choose the ellipse and then choose Deleted Mailboxes:
Then you'll see a list of recoverable Inactive Mailboxes along with their deletion date. You can select the mailbox and choose
Recover:After you select
Recoveryou'll get a new Window. You'll need to change to `Deleted Mailbox Unique Information" and set a Login Name and password for the mailbox account at that point. Then you can click Recover.After the mailbox is recovered you can either login to it via OWA with the account, or just give your admin account Full Access to it and then let it create that extra profile in your existing Outlook (after about 30 minutes, just restart Outlook if it is Outlook 2013).
SO...my recommendation is to place every mailbox you have on either Litigation Hold or if your Legal/Compliance puts a restriction on something so permanent, at least an In-Place hold before deleting a mailbox/user in Office 365, especially if they are an employee that sends/receives business critical emails or sensitive information.