In this article, we will provide a comprehensive guide to the maximum number of retention policies and items involving Microsoft Purview retention policies and labels.
Microsoft Purview retention policies and retention labels are essential tools for organizations that need to manage and retain data. These policies automatically retain or delete data based on specific parameters set by an organization. However, to ensure that these policies function within acceptable parameters, there are maximum numbers within policies and items that must be considered.
Limits for Retention Labels
A tenant can support up to 1,000 retention labels. This means an organization can create up to 10,000 policies with different retention labels and configurations that include different workloads, sensitive data types, and retention durations.
Limits for Retention Policies
A tenant can have a maximum of 10,000 policies, including different policies for retention, DLP, information barriers, eDiscovery holds, In-Place Holds, and sensitivity labels.
However, the following are not included in this limit:
Litigation holds.
Auto-labeling policies for SharePoint and OneDrive, unless they are for cloud attachments.
Published label policies for SharePoint and OneDrive that delete-only, rather than retain-only, or retain and then delete.
Exchange retention policies from messaging records management (MRM).
Within the 10,000 policies limit, there are also limits on the maximum number of policies for retention per workload:
SharePoint or OneDrive (specific locations included or excluded): 2,600
SharePoint or OneDrive: (all sites automatically included): 13
For Exchange, the maximum number of policies for retention per workload is 1,800.
Per mailbox, the recommended maximum of policies before affecting performance is 25, while the supported limit is 50.
Limits for Static Scopes
If you use static scopes in any configuration to include or exclude specific users or Microsoft 365 groups, there are some limits per policy to be aware of. For Skype for Business, the maximum numbers of items per policy for retention for static scopes is 1,000.
For Disposition of Content
For the disposition of content, there are limits to be mindful of, including 16 million items in either of the following disposition review states: pending disposition or approved disposition. There is also a limit of 10 reviewers per disposition stage in any combination of individual users and mail-enabled security groups. A tenant can only have a maximum of 200 reviewers in any combination of individual users and mail-enabled security groups. Organizations may need to prove the disposition for up to 7 years after the item has been disposed of.
Solutions for Retention Policy Limits
If any organization exceeds these retention policy limits, administrators can create additional policies with the same retention settings, create adaptive scopes, and/or use a combination of static scopes. Creating multiple policies leads to higher administrative overheads, making adaptive scopes preferable over static scopes. If specifying retention settings for a specific group of users, an administrator can exclude the subset of users with a more extended retention period or create additional retention policies with different retention periods.
Microsoft Purview retention policies and retention labels are incredibly powerful tools for organizations that need to manage and retain data. However, there are maximum numbers within policies and items per policy that must be considered. Understanding these limits and best practices for retention policies and scopes help organizations manage, retain, and dispose of their data effectively. Employing the appropriate solutions for retention policy limits is also essential to maintain compliance with regulatory, legal, and business requirements.
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