When you’ve read the previous posts in this series about Exchange 2010 archiving, you’ve probably seen the one explaining default folders. In this post, retention policy tags will be attached to default folders. Default folders are folders that are present in Exchange mailboxes by default. Examples are the Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items etcetera.
These Retention Policy Tags are set by administrators on the mentioned default folders and cannot be changed by users. Items in a default folder that has a retention policy tag attached to them inherit the retention policy that is set on the above default folder.
One downside to keep in mind
One big downside on the use of retention policy tags on default folders is that they can’t be used to move items to an archive after a certain period of time. Below you see the handsome error that is presented when you will try to do this. In my opinion, this is a reasonably big downside of using tags on default folders. When put in other words, retention policy tags on default folder can only have “Delete and allow recovery” or “Permanently Delete” as action to the policy.
