Disable Retention/Litigation Hold on an Exchange Online Mailbox

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.

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).

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.