I manage a Microsoft Team for my department, and we're facing an issue where the inbox is full. Every time I try to delete messages, they just come back within seconds. After contacting support, I learned there's a retention policy linked to the inbox. They suggested running two PowerShell commands:
* Set-Mailbox "username" -RemoveDelayHoldApplied
* Set-Mailbox "username" -RemoveDelayReleaseHoldApplied
However, those commands failed. I was subsequently informed that the mailbox is actually a Microsoft 365 Group mailbox, meaning delay holds are automatically enforced and can't be manually removed via PowerShell. Although my mailbox was excluded from the retention policy, Microsoft has a mandatory delay hold period that could last up to 30 days.
This all seems quite absurd. Do I really have to wait that long to properly manage the inbox? Is there a better solution available?
4 Answers
If getting incoming emails is a priority, consider setting up an Exchange Transport Rule to redirect emails to another mailbox. It could be a good temporary fix while you're sorting out the holds.
Yes, it's true that Microsoft applies a 30-day hold even after you remove it. I remember there was a command to remove another hold, but I can't recall it right now. It's definitely frustrating that there's a second hold after you've already released one.
You might want to consider assigning an E3 license to your mailbox to increase the space, then see if that helps with the deleted messages. You could also try using Outlook Web Access (OWA) and delete messages using Shift + Delete, giving it some time to process. It might just do the trick!
I've not run into this problem with team mailboxes specifically, but for regular or shared mailboxes, running `Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity [[email protected]]` can help expedite cleanup. In some cases, I had to rerun it every few hours to make sure cleanup was consistent.
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