The principles of retention - M365

 

1. Retention wins over deletion: Content won't be permanently deleted when it also has retention settings to retain it.

2. The longest retention period wins: If content is subject to multiple retention settings that retain content for different periods of time, the content will be retained until the end of the longest retention period.

3. Explicit wins over implicit for deletions: If a retention policy includes a specific location, such as a specific user’s mailbox or OneDrive for Business account, that policy takes precedence over another retention policy that applies to all users’ mailboxes or OneDrive for Business accounts but doesn’t specifically include that user’s mailbox.

4. The shortest deletion period wins: Similarly, if content is subject to multiple policies that delete content (with no retention), it will be deleted at the end of the shortest retention period.