Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP1

Topic Last Modified: 2012-07-23

When you disable a personal (on-premises) or cloud-based archive, it becomes disconnected. A disconnected personal archive is retained in the mailbox database for a specified amount of time. By default, Exchange retains disconnected personal archives for 30 days. During this time, you can recover the personal archive by associating it with an existing mailbox. You can modify the deleted mailbox retention period to retain a deleted mailbox or personal archive for a longer or shorter period. For more information, see Configure Deleted Mailbox and Disabled Personal Archive Retention.

Note:
If you disable a personal archive for a user mailbox and then enable a personal archive for that same mailbox, the mailbox will get a new personal archive.

The retention period for disconnected cloud-based archives is covered by the service level agreement (SLA) for Exchange Online Archiving. During this period, you can reconnect the cloud-based archive to the on-premises mailbox from which it was disconnected. After this period, the disconnected cloud-based archive is permanently deleted.

Looking for other management tasks related to personal archives? Check out Managing Archives.

Use the EMC to connect a disconnected personal archive

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Personal archives" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Recipient Configuration > Disconnected Mailbox.

    Note:
    If the personal archive that you want to connect to a mailbox isn't displayed in the result pane, restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, and then run the Clean-MailboxDatabase cmdlet against the mailbox database that contains the personal archive.
  2. In the result pane, select the personal archive that you want to connect to a primary mailbox.

  3. In the action pane, click Connect to Primary Mailbox.

  4. A warning appears confirming that you want to connect the personal archive to a specific user. This is the user to whom the archive belongs. Click Yes.

Use the Shell to connect a disconnected personal archive

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Personal archives" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

  1. If you don't know the name of the personal archive, you can view it in the Shell by running the following command. This example finds all disconnected personal archives on mailbox database DB01 and displays additional information about the personal archives such as the GUID and item count.

    Copy Code 
    Get-MailboxDatabase "DB01" | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where {($_.DisconnectDate -ne $null) -and ($_.IsArchiveMailbox -eq $true)} Format-List
  2. Connect the personal archive to the primary mailbox. This example connects Chris Ashton's archive to Chris Ashton's primary mailbox and uses the GUID as the personal archive's identity.

    Copy Code 
    Connect-Mailbox -Identity "8734c04e-981e-4ccf-a547-1c1ac7ebf3e2" -Archive -User "Chris Ashton" -Database "DB01"
  3. A warning appears stating that you'll have to wait for Active Directory replication to complete before the user can access the personal archive.

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see the following topics:

Connect a disabled cloud-based archive

You can connect a disabled cloud-based archive to the user account from which it was disconnected by enabling a cloud-based archive for the mailbox. If a disconnected cloud-based archive exists for the mailbox, it will be connected. For details, see Enable a Personal (On-Premises) or Cloud-Based Archive for an Existing Mailbox.

Important:
When you attempt to connect a disconnected cloud-based archive to a mailbox, if the cloud-based archive has been permanently deleted, a new cloud-based archive is created.