AT A GLANCE
Microsoft is raising auto-expanding archive capacity from 1.5 TB to 3 TB for eligible mailboxes, with licensing conditions attached. This is the online archive, not a larger everyday inbox. Most businesses will not approach the existing ceiling, but some with extensive correspondence and retention requirements will welcome the room. Check eligibility, monitor growth and keep retention decisions separate..... more storage does not decide what the business should keep.
Most of us will never worry about filling a 1.5 TB email archive..... even those who seem to have kept every email since the company bought its first modem!
BUT..... companies with substantial historical correspondence and long retention requirements can have a very different problem.
Microsoft is doubling the maximum auto-expanding archive capacity in Exchange Online from 1.5 TB to 3 TB for eligible mailboxes. Rollout is scheduled from mid-October, with completion expected by late October 2026. Eligible licences include Office 365 E5, Microsoft 365 E5 and qualifying Purview offerings, including E7. Other archive entitlements retain their existing limits.
This adds detail that was still missing when the Office 365 for IT Pros article appeared in September.
The increase applies to the online archive, rather than your everyday inbox. Capacity expands incrementally as required. Where auto-expanding archiving is already enabled, Microsoft says eligible mailboxes need no additional configuration and incur no additional per-GB charge.
For most businesses, this requires no urgent action. For those approaching the existing ceiling, it provides useful breathing room..... but more storage is still NOT a retention policy!
Keep what the business needs and must retain, monitor growth, and review information that no longer serves a purpose.
From the briefing.....
The briefing put this in proportion: it matters to a relatively small number of customers. For those organisations, a review of archive growth, licensing and retention is more useful than treating the announcement as a reason for everybody to change something.
THE SOURCE / FURTHER READING
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Read the original feature at Office 365 for IT Pros (opens a new tab)Microsoft’s updated archive guidance (opens a new tab)