Volume 30 Issue 38

Issue Date: December 11, 2025 « Previous Issue | Next Issue »

The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on December 11, 2025.

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Today's Highlights »

Changes coming to Microsoft 365 Business
Free-up Mailbox Space
Searching Calendar in New Outlook

This is the last issue of Exchange Messaging Outlook for 2025. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. I'll see you next year!

Changes coming to Microsoft 365 Business

In 2026, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, and Premium license will get an extra 50 GB added to their mailbox, increasing the mailbox size to 100 GB. Currently, this is all the information I have, Microsoft will release more information closer to when the extra 50 GB is rolled out. (When the Outlook.com subscriber mailboxes were increased to 100 GB last year, it took several months for all mailboxes to get the increase.)

Business and Enterprise subscriptions will receive Copilot Chat enhancements in the Office applications. Administrators will have security, management, and analytics options available for Copilot Chat.

As with most everything, it’s not free – a price increase is coming in July 2026. Business Basic will increase by $1, to $7//month per mailbox, and Business Standard goes up $1.50, to $14.00. Pricing for business Premium remains $22.

Prices for most Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans are also increasing, mostly by $3 per month.

For more information on the upcoming changes, Microsoft marketing has the following article. Support will release more information in 2026.
Advancing Microsoft 365: New capabilities and pricing update

Free-up Mailbox Space

A user’s mailbox was nearly full and generating warning messages that they were near their mailbox quota. They didn't want to delete messages and wondered how they could archive messages on their computer.

As a first step when a mailbox is full, I always recommend searching for large messages first and see if there are any huge or enormous messages they can delete. Then empty the Deleted Items folder.

While this user has a Microsoft 365 business mailbox and uses Outlook on the web, classic Outlook can archive mail from any email account. For Microsoft 365 accounts, they need a license for Outlook 2016 or newer but older versions of Outlook will work for POP and IMAP accounts. If they don’t have a license for classic Outlook, they can use a trial version (remember to cancel it before the trial end!)

Note: When adding an IMAP or Microsoft 365 mailbox to classic Outlook to archive or backup mail, verify Outlook is syncing all email. Check in File > Account Settings > Account Settings. Double click on the account to see the sync slider setting. More info here: Outlook Folders Appear Empty after Exporting an IMAP Account

After the account is synced to Outlook, archive the mail using the manual archive method in File > Tools > Clean up old mail. Select “Archive this folder and all subfolders:”, then select the email address (top level) then choose the date and data file before clicking Ok to start the archive.

To make a full backup, use File > Open & Export > Import and Export to export the entire mailbox. After exporting the mail, you'll need to delete older mail from the mailbox manually. Export only makes a copy, while archiving removes it from the server.

Users with a subscription to Microsoft 365, can export mail from new Outlook to a pst, but cannot archive older mail, plus it takes a long time to export.

If you don’t have a license for classic Outlook, eM client can archive to a single file or export mail to individual EML files on the computer.

Searching Calendar in New Outlook

When you search the calendar in new Outlook or Outlook on the web, the search defaults to the previous 12 months and forward 24 months. To change the search period, click on the “Selected Calendars” link on the right side of the search field. There is also an option to search attachments.

Search will include all calendars in the mailbox whose calendar folder is selected and are selected to show on screen. Search will not include calendars from other mailboxes that are visible on screen. If you want to select a specific calendar, you can uncheck the other calendars in the Selected Calendars dialog.

Click “Clear filters” in the Selected Calendars dialog to reset search to the default settings of 1 year past, 2 years forward.

Classic Outlook doesn't have this search restriction and will return all items that match the search criteria, with the option to search all calendars in the profile.