Legal Hold

What a hold does

• Held mail is never deleted, even after its retention period ends.
• Holds do not hide or change mail. Search and reading work as before.
• Only admins can set and lift holds.

Open Legal Hold

1. Open the user menu (top right) and choose Administration.
2. In the sidebar, under Rules, click Legal Hold.

Hold by address

1. Enter one or more addresses under Email addresses (comma-separated).
2. Click Add.

• Holds every message sent from or to the address, past and future.
• Case and display names do not matter: [email protected] also matches "Anna [email protected]".
• To remove: click the trash icon at the address and confirm "Remove {email} from legal hold?".

Hold single messages

1. Open a message and click Legal hold in the toolbar. Or select several in the result list and click Legal hold.
2. Enter the Reason for the legal hold.

• You see "Legal hold set".
• Held messages on the Legal Hold page lists them with Subject, Reason and Set by.
• To lift: Lift hold in the list, or Lift legal hold on the message.

Hold the whole archive

1. Under Tenant-wide hold, enter a Reason.
2. Click Activate hold.

• The page shows "Active since {date}: {reason}".
• No message is deleted while the hold is active.
• The archive itself cannot be deleted either.
• To end it: Lift hold, then confirm "Lift the tenant-wide hold? Retention deletion resumes."

After lifting

• Mail whose retention period has already ended is deleted with the next nightly run.

More: Retention Policies.