M365 Changelog: (Updated) Microsoft Purview Records Management – Enhancing inherited and auto-applied retention label behavior in Exchange Online

MC567472 – Updated July 13, 2023: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft is releasing an enhancement to better align Exchange item lifecycle behaviors with the principles of retention and labeling principles shared with other workloads like SharePoint Online.

This change affects items which have a Microsoft Purview retention label or legacy MRM tag auto-applied or inherited from a parent folder which is then moved to the “Deleted Items” folder either by drag & drop or manual deletion. It does not affect existing behavior for items that are ‘permanently’ deleted by the user (for example, using the SHIFT+DEL combination), items that have no Microsoft Purview retention labels applied, or items which have a Microsoft Purview retention label or legacy MRM tag applied manually by the user.

The enhancement includes multiple behavior changes which are summarized in the ‘How this will affect your organization’ section below. 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin at the mid-July (previously late June) and is expected to be complete by the mid-September (previously late August). 

How this will affect your organization:

The following behaviors will change for items that have an auto-applied retention label, a retention label inherited from a parent folder, or a legacy MRM tag inherited from a parent folder:

• Items with any retention setting applied by Microsoft Purview (any label which retains content for a period of time even if a user deletes them) will have that retention setting enforced when moved to the “Deleted Items” folder regardless of how it was applied or if a default MRM tag applies to the “Deleted Items” folder.

• For items which do not retain content and only enforce deletion after a certain period of time or any other action, when moved to the “Deleted Items” folder will behave as follows:
  • If a Microsoft Purview retention label is auto-applied to an item, it will remain applied to the item regardless of whether there is a default MRM tag applied to the “Deleted Items” folder and actions will be processed accordingly based on the auto-applied label’s settings.
  • If a Microsoft Purview retention label or MRM tag is applied to the item by inheritance from a parent folder and a default MRM tag is not applied to the “Deleted Items” folder, the inherited label/tag will remain applied to the item and actions processed accordingly based on the label/tag settings.
  • If a Microsoft Purview retention label or MRM tag is applied to the item by inheritance from a parent folder and a default MRM tag is applied to the “Deleted Items” folder, the label or tag with the shortest deletion period will win and its actions will be processed accordingly based on that winning label or tag settings. 

This change does not affect: 

• The behaviors of any other folders within the mailbox.
• Items that are ‘permanently’ deleted by the user (for example, using the SHIFT+DEL combination). 
• Items that have no Microsoft Purview retention labels or legacy MRM tags applied.
• Items that have a Microsoft Purview retention label or legacy MRM tag manually applied by the user.

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to enable this change; however, you may want to update your documentation and end-user training to incorporate the change in behavior.

Get started with Records Management in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

• Microsoft Purview compliance portal for WW and GCC cloud environments
• Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 
• Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

Learn more: Learn about retention for Exchange

Additional information