You can place mailboxes on retention hold to turn off MRM temporarily (for example when users are on vacation). This suspends the processing of retention policies for the mailbox until retention hold is disabled. This is different from placing mailboxes on In-Place Hold or litigation hold.

For details about how to place a mailbox on retention hold, see Place a Mailbox on Retention Hold.

To learn more about In-Place Hold and litigation hold, see In-Place Hold.

To remove a retention tag from a mailbox, you unlink the tag from the retention policy. When you unlink a retention policy tag (RPT) for a default folder, the default mailbox tag applies to all items in that folder. When you unlink a personal tag, it's no longer available to the user. Tags applied to existing messages will continue to be processed unless you remove the tag from the Exchange organization.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the “Messaging records management” entry in the Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.

This Shell example unlinks the retention tag Delete - 3 Days from the retention policy Corp-Users.

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$tags = (Get-RetentionPolicy "Corp-Users").RetentionPolicyTagLinks $tags -= "Deleted Items - 3 Days" Set-RetentionPolicy "Corp-Users" -RetentionPolicyTagLinks $tags

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Get-RetentionPolicy and Set-RetentionPolicy.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the “Apply retention policies” entry in the Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.

You can stop a retention policy from applying to a mailbox by removing the policy from the mailbox user's properties.

This Shell example removes the retention policy from the mailbox jpeoples.

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Set-Mailbox jpeoples -RetentionPolicy $null.

This Shell example removes the retention policy from all mailboxes in the Exchange organization.

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Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {RetentionPolicy -ne $null} | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy $null

This Shell example removes the retention policy Corp-Finance from all mailbox users who have the policy applied.

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Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {RetentionPolicy -eq "Corp-Finance"} | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy $null

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-Mailbox and Get-Mailbox.

To turn off MRM for an organization, delete all retention tags and retention policies except for the ArbitrationMailbox policy, which is created by Exchange Setup. After this is complete, retention policies aren't enforced.

Caution:

Retention policies also include Move to Archive tags, which move messages to the user’s archive mailbox. If you remove a retention policy that has a Move to Archive tag, users who had the policy applied will no longer have messages moved to the archive by the Managed Folder Assistant. To avoid this, remove only the Delete and Allow Recovery and Permanently Delete tags from your organization and keep the policies that have the Move to Archive tags applied. Alternatively, users who have and archive enabled could manually move items to their archive mailbox using Outlook or Outlook Web App. Before removing retention tags or retention policies, we recommend that you check the settings of the tags being removed. Don’t delete tags with the Move to Archive retention action.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the “Messaging records management” entry in the Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.

Note:
Include the WhatIf switch in the following commands to simulate the action taken by a command.

This example removes all delete tags from an Exchange organization except the Never Delete tag, which is used in the ArbitrationMailbox policy created by Exchange Setup.

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Get-RetentionPolicyTag | ? {$_.RetentionAction -ne "MoveToArchive" -and $_.Name -ne "Never Delete"} | Remove-RetentionPolicyTag

This example removes all retention tags except the Never Delete tag.

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Get-RetentionPolicyTag | ? {$_.Name -ne "Never Delete"} | Remove-RetentionPolicyTag

This command removes the Corp-Users retention policy from an Exchange organization.

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Remove-RetentionPolicy Corp-Users

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

• Get-RetentionPolicyTag
  
  
• Remove-RetentionPolicyTag
  
  
• Remove-RetentionPolicy