How to Configure Personal Archiving in Exchange Server 2010

Most of the organizations rely on personal store (.pst) file for storing messages, but there are some challenges associated with .PST file, like data theft, unmanaged and no control over PST files, inability to apply message retention policies on PST and so on. Exchange Server 2010 provides an alternate feature of personal archive where users can store their messages in an alternative storage location and they can access the archive folder anywhere, unlike PST files.

Users can move their messages to and from these archive folders to their primary mailbox, which eliminates the need for creating PST files. We can create an archive mailbox while creating a new primary mailbox, or we can enable archive with existing mailboxes. Since archive mailboxes reside on the same database as the user’s primary mailbox, so user’s archive mailbox will move automatically when we move his/her primary mailbox.

 In Exchange Server 2010, we can create archive policies which will automatically move user’s messages from primary mailbox to archive mailbox at regular intervals. Exchange Server 2010 creates a default archive policy having below retention tags:-

·         Default 2 year move to archive (Default)

·         Personal 1 year move to archive

·         Personal 5 year move to archive

·         Personal never move to archive

How to Configure Archiving for an Existing Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010

1.       Open the Exchange Management Console from the Start menu.

2.       Expand Recipient Configuration and click on Mailbox.

3.       In the result pane, you can see default columns, like Display name, Alias and so on. Here we can add one more column, Host Archive. To do so, click on View in Action pane on the left-side and click on Add/Remove Columns.

4.       In the Available Columns box, select Has Archive and Add, then Ok.

5.       To enable archiving on any mailbox, right-click on it and select Enable Archive.

 

6.       Select if you want archive mailbox database to be created locally or remotely. Click on Browse to select the destination mailbox database.

 

  

7.       Once Archiving is enabled, you can confirm the same by log on to that mailbox and Archiving folder can be seen. You can drag and drop items to this folder as shown below:-

  

 

How to Configure Archiving from Exchange Management Shell

How to Enable Archiving

enable-mailbox sahinm –archive

 How to Disable Archiving

disable-mailbox sahinm –archive