Outlook: Local Failures Folder Full (Mailbox Full)

Description

User's mailbox is full (50 GB or 100GB) even though 'Online archives' is enabled.

Storage (User's Outlook Web Access ? Settings > General > Storage) shows 'Local Failures' taking up a large amount of space (i.e. 70 GB)


Issue

Online archives may be full and back logged


Resolution

Enable 'auto-expanding' archives

NOTE: We are trying to

  • Disable single items recovery to purge items from the recover items folder - and -
  • Enable auto expanding archive for the user mailbox
 
Open windows PowerShell as an administrator and run the following cmdlets:
  • Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force
  • Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement -RequiredVersion 3.4.0 -Force
  • Connect-ExchangeOnline                            #Sign in with global admin credential
  • Set-Mailbox <<user's email address>> -RetainDeletedItemsFor 0
  • Set-Mailbox <<user's email address>> -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $false
  • Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity <<user's email address>>
  • Enable-Mailbox <<user's email address>> -AutoExpandingArchive
  • Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity <<user's email address>>

To enable auto expanding archives for the entire organization:

  • Open windows powershell as an admin and run the following cmdlets
  • Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force
  • Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement -RequiredVersion 3.4.0 -Force
  • Connect-ExchangeOnline                           #Sign in with global admin credential
  • Set-OrganizationConfig -AutoExpandingArchive
 
For more information, Kindly visit  Enable auto-expanding archiving | Microsoft Learn