📧 Recipe · Exchange & Email

Disable Retention/Litigation Hold on an Exchange Online Mailbox

Release a mailbox from Litigation Hold, In-Place Hold, or retention hold using Exchange Online PowerShell or the Microsoft Purview portal

Complexity

Intermediate

Impact

compliance-risk + legal-hold + exchange-online + mailbox-configuration + requires-legal-approval

Context

Why This Matters

When to disable a retention hold

Exchange Online supports several overlapping hold mechanisms that preserve mailbox content beyond normal retention and deletion policies:

Litigation Hold — a mailbox-level switch (LitigationHoldEnabled) that preserves all mailbox items indefinitely or for a set duration.
In-Place Hold — a legacy query-based hold (being retired) configured in the Exchange admin center.
Retention Hold — a pause on Messaging Records Management (MRM) retention policy processing (RetentionHoldEnabled), commonly used when a user is on extended leave.
Microsoft Purview retention policies / eDiscovery holds — tenant-level or case-level holds applied through the Purview compliance portal.

Admins typically disable a hold when a legal matter closes, an employee returns from leave, a mailbox is being decommissioned, or a hold was applied in error. Because each hold type is controlled through a different surface, you must identify which hold is active before removing it.

Important: this is not a Microsoft Graph task

As of today, Microsoft Graph does not expose LitigationHoldEnabled, RetentionHoldEnabled, or In-Place Hold properties on the user or mailbox resource. All of these operations require Exchange Online PowerShell (Set-Mailbox) or the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. Any recipe that claims to toggle these via Graph is inaccurate.

Expected Outcomes

What you will have when you finish

Confirmation of which hold types were active on the target mailbox (Litigation, In-Place, Retention, or Purview).
The selected hold(s) disabled, with before/after values captured for the audit trail.
A documented record of who requested removal, the legal/business justification, and the date of change.
Optional verification that MRM retention policies have resumed processing (for retention holds) or that preservation has stopped (for Litigation Hold).

Risks & Considerations

Warnings and compliance considerations

Legal exposure. Never disable a Litigation Hold or eDiscovery hold without written authorization from Legal or Compliance. Removing a hold while a matter is active can result in spoliation of evidence.
Delays in effect. Changes to LitigationHoldEnabled can take up to 60 minutes to apply. Plan verification accordingly.
Purview vs. mailbox holds. A mailbox can still be held by a Purview retention policy or eDiscovery case even after LitigationHoldEnabled is set to $false. Always check for delegated holds via Get-Mailbox | Select-Object -ExpandProperty InPlaceHolds.
Retention hold ≠ Litigation Hold. RetentionHoldEnabled only pauses MRM policy processing; it does not preserve content. Do not confuse the two when responding to legal requests.
Inactive mailboxes. Removing all holds from a soft-deleted / inactive mailbox can make it eligible for permanent purge. Confirm the mailbox status first.

Required Permissions

Permission	Why It's Needed
Exchange Administrator or Organization Management role	Required to run Set-Mailbox against mailboxes and modify hold properties
Compliance Administrator or eDiscovery Manager role	Required to release Purview retention policies or eDiscovery case holds
Exchange Online PowerShell module (ExchangeOnlineManagement) installed	All hold operations are performed through EXO cmdlets, not Graph
Documented authorization from Legal/Compliance	Required before releasing any litigation or eDiscovery hold to avoid spoliation risk

The fastest way to get this done: just ask Dex. Copy the prompt below and paste it into your Dex conversation.

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Disable the Litigation Hold on {user_upn}'s mailbox. Confirm the hold is released and flag any remaining Purview or eDiscovery holds that I'll need to release separately in the compliance portal.

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Option A — Disable Litigation Hold via the Exchange admin center

Sign in to the Exchange admin center as an Exchange Administrator.
Navigate to Recipients → Mailboxes.
Search for and select the target mailbox (e.g. {user_upn}).
In the flyout, select Others → Manage litigation hold.
Clear the Turn on litigation hold checkbox.
Click Save. Note that propagation can take up to 60 minutes.

Option B — Disable a Microsoft Purview retention policy hold

Sign in to the Microsoft Purview portal as a Compliance Administrator.
Go to Solutions → Data Lifecycle Management → Retention policies (or eDiscovery → Cases for case holds).
Locate the policy or case applying a hold to the mailbox.
Either remove the mailbox from the policy's scope, or disable/delete the policy if it is no longer needed.
For eDiscovery holds: open the case, go to Holds, edit the hold, and either remove the mailbox or turn the hold off.

Option C — Disable MRM retention hold (user on leave scenario)

Retention hold (pausing MRM policy processing) has no GUI toggle in the modern admin centers and must be changed via PowerShell — see the PowerShell section below.

Not supported via Microsoft Graph

Microsoft Graph does not expose mailbox hold properties. LitigationHoldEnabled, RetentionHoldEnabled, InPlaceHolds, and Purview retention scopes are all managed through Exchange Online PowerShell or the Purview portal.

If you are building automation, the supported paths are:

Exchange Online PowerShell — Set-Mailbox -LitigationHoldEnabled $false / -RetentionHoldEnabled $false (see the PowerShell section).
Security & Compliance PowerShell — Set-RetentionCompliancePolicy and Set-CaseHoldPolicy for Purview holds.

You can use Graph to look up the target user's id, userPrincipalName, and mail attributes before handing off to the EXO cmdlets:

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{user_upn}?$select=id,displayName,userPrincipalName,mail,accountEnabled

But the actual hold-removal call must be made through PowerShell. Use the Manual or PowerShell approach instead.

Disable holds via Exchange Online PowerShell

1. Connect to Exchange Online

# Install once if needed
Install-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement -Scope CurrentUser

Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName admin@contoso.com

2. Inspect current hold state

Get-Mailbox -Identity {user_upn} |
  Select-Object DisplayName, UserPrincipalName,
    LitigationHoldEnabled, LitigationHoldDuration, LitigationHoldOwner,
    RetentionHoldEnabled, StartDateForRetentionHold, EndDateForRetentionHold,
    InPlaceHolds, ComplianceTagHoldApplied

Review the output carefully. If InPlaceHolds contains GUIDs, the mailbox is covered by a Purview retention policy or eDiscovery hold that must be released in the Purview portal — not via Set-Mailbox.

3a. Disable Litigation Hold

Set-Mailbox -Identity {user_upn} -LitigationHoldEnabled $false

3b. Disable MRM retention hold

Set-Mailbox -Identity {user_upn} -RetentionHoldEnabled $false

4. Verify (allow up to 60 minutes for propagation)

Get-Mailbox -Identity {user_upn} |
  Select-Object LitigationHoldEnabled, RetentionHoldEnabled, InPlaceHolds

5. Disconnect

Disconnect-ExchangeOnline -Confirm:$false

Next steps

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