Microsoft Outlook: “Online Archive” feature for iOS and Android

Originally posted by Microsoft Sep 24, 2024 Uncategorized 0 Comments

The “Online Archive” feature for Microsoft Outlook on iOS and Android will soon allow users to access archived emails directly from their folder list. This feature helps manage mailbox size by storing older emails in a separate archive mailbox. Rollouts will occur from mid-August to late October 2024. Admins must enable the “Mailbox archive” for this feature to be available to users.

Coming soon for Microsoft Outlook for iOS and Android: Online archive mailboxes is a feature that offers users advanced archiving capabilities in the Mailbox archive. An Outlook online archive mailbox can store older email messages where they won’t occupy space in the user’s primary mailbox. This specialized mailbox appears with your other mailbox folders in Outlook. After this rollout, if you have enabled Mailbox archive for your users, the Online Archive mailbox will appear in the folder list, which users can access by tapping their profile in the top left of their screen.

NOTE: The Online Archive folder is different than the Archive folder. Using the Archive button to move messages to the Archive folder doesn’t reduce your mailbox size. Learn more about the Archive folder: Archive in Outlook for Windows – Microsoft Support.

Before this rollout, users are only able to access their online archive emails in Outlook for iOS and Android through Search. After this rollout, users will be also able to access archived email in the Online Archive folder.

Learn more about the admin policy: Enable archive mailboxes for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

Learn more about the user experience: Manage email storage with online archive mailboxes – Microsoft Support (will be updated soon)

When this will happen:

General Availability | Outlook for iOS (Worldwide GCC, GCC High, DoD): We began rolling out mid-August 2024 and expect to complete by late October 2024.

General Availability | Outlook for Android (Worldwide GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out late September 2024 and expect to complete by late October 2024.

How this will affect your organization:

For tenants where admins have enabled Mailbox archive for users in the Exchange admin center, users will start seeing Online Archive in their folder list in Outlook mobile.

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What you need to do to prepare:

If admins do not turn on Mailbox archive for a user, this feature is disabled. Learn more in the section called How to enable an archive mailbox in Enable archive mailboxes for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn.

This rollout will happen automatically. You may want to notify your users about their archives appearing in the folder list and update any relevant documentation.

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