Title:
Litigation Hold in M365 — What It Is and How to Do It Right
Introduction
Litigation Hold preserves mailbox and OneDrive data for legal or compliance needs. I’ve used it in Monster Energy, PIMCO, Church projects, and Martin.
What Litigation Hold Does
- Keeps deleted emails
- Preserves edited messages
- Locks OneDrive items
- Prevents irreversible deletion
- Meets legal retention requirements
How to Enable (GUI)
M365 Admin Center → Users → Mailbox → Litigation Hold → Enable
How to Enable (PowerShell)
Set-Mailbox [email protected] -LitigationHoldEnabled $true -LitigationHoldDuration 3650
Best Practices
- Keep at least 5 years
- Church uses 20 years
- Store the reason in the notes
- Never disable without GC/Legal approval
- Use eDiscovery to search preserved data
- Document everything
Common Misunderstandings
❌ Litigation Hold is NOT retention policy
❌ Litigation Hold is NOT backup
✔ Litigation Hold is legal preservation
Conclusion
Use Litigation Hold carefully.
Once enabled, treat that mailbox as evidence.
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