Urban legend: Microsoft Deletes Old Outlook.com Messages

I frequently see questions posted in the forums where users say Microsoft is deleting their older messages. The times vary, from 2 years, to 5, 10 and even 20 years.

The user insists it is a Microsoft policy to delete old mail. It is not. Microsoft won’t delete mail even if your mailbox is over quota**; they’ll bounce incoming mail and not allow you to send mail instead.

The messages always go something like this:

"I’ve been using my Hotmail account daily for [nn] years. I was looking for an old message from [year] and only have mail going back to [year2]. Does Outlook.com automatically delete my emails from before [year2]? I can’t find any information that outlook.com has a policy to delete emails based on age or size. "

You can't find a policy because there is none. Microsoft does not delete old email from user’s mailboxes, with two exceptions:

1. They will automatically mail in your Deleted Items and Junk email folders as it ages past the (current) 30 day policy (and only from those two folders).
2. If you don't have an active office subscription, they will purge your mailbox if you don’t log in at least once a year (used to be 270 days years ago).

If you don't log into outlook.com (and separately to onedrive.com) at least once a year, the mailbox (and OneDrive) will be purged of all files. (Logging in the two servers using apps counts as logging in.)

If you are missing older mail from around 2008 and earlier, possible causes are:

1. 1. You deleted it yourself.
   2. Your mailbox was full, and you deleted or archived the mail using POP3. Until around 2008, outlook.com mailboxes were a puny 500 MB. That is not much for mail, calendar, and contacts, especially if you had the account since the early days of Hotmail. When Microsoft moved Outlook.com to Exchange online servers in 2016/2017, mailboxes grew to 15 GB.
   3. You used a POP3 client. Years ago, many POP clients, including Outlook, defaulted to delete mail from the server as you downloaded it using POP3. Now most (if not all) now default to leaving it on the server for 14 days. (If you used POP3 and have the old data files, the mail can usually be recovered from the files.)
   4. You went more than 270 days without logging in. Back then mailboxes were purged if you didn't log into the account.

If you ever used classic Outlook, using either the older Outlook Connector or a newer client using Exchange services, to connect to your mailbox, was auto archive enabled? Auto archiving will remove mail from the server as it ages. Default was to archive mail and calendar at 2 years, but configurable up to 5 years.

If you use a current version of classic Outlook and older mail is not syncing to Outlook, check your sync slider settings. To save hard drive space, Outlook may default to syncing less than all of your mail. Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. Double click on the account to view or change the sync slider.