Deleted Mailboxes

Applies to: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, Office 365 for enterprises, Live@edu

Topic Last Modified: 2011-02-03

If a deleted mailbox is recoverable, it appears on the Deleted Mailboxes page. To access Deleted Mailboxes, in the Exchange Control Panel, select Manage My Organization > Users & Groups > Mailboxes, and click Deleted Mailboxes Deleted Mailboxes.

On the Deleted Mailboxes page, the deleted mailboxes are listed by e-mail address and the date the mailbox was deleted. You can sort the list by clicking on E-mail Address or Date Deleted.

  • To recover a deleted mailbox, select the mailbox and click Recover Recover Deleted Mailbox.
  • To refresh the list of deleted mailboxes, click Refresh.

Why doesn't a deleted mailbox appear on the list?

If a deleted mailbox isn't recoverable, it won't appear on the list. So when isn't a mailbox recoverable?

  • The deleted mailbox was a resource mailbox. Room and equipment mailboxes aren't recoverable.
  • The mailbox was deleted more than 30 days ago. Mailboxes can only be recovered within 30 days of deletion.
  • You created a mailbox and deleted it immediately. A mailbox isn't actually "created" until it is directly accessed in some way as in the following examples:
    • The user signs in to the mailbox or accesses the mailbox using a mail client.
    • An e-mail message is sent to the mailbox.
    • An administrator runs a command that accesses the mailbox, for example: Test-MapiConnectivity <mailbox>.
  • The deleted mailbox was in a federated domain. A federated domain uses on-premises credentials to access mailboxes in a cloud-based organization.
    You can't use the Exchange Control Panel to recover federated mailboxes. You have to use Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Recover a Deleted Mailbox in Windows PowerShell.