Limits for Retention Policies and Retention Label Policies in Microsoft 365

Overview

Microsoft 365 enforces specific limits for managing data retention policies to ensure security, compliance, and performance.

1. Retention Labels and Policies

• Retention Labels: Maximum of 1,000 per tenant.

• Policies per Tenant: Up to 10,000 total policies, covering:

  • Retention, DLP, eDiscovery, In-Place Holds, sensitivity labels, etc.

• Exclusions: Policies for auto-labeling, Exchange MRM, and Teams/Viva Engage mailboxes are not counted within the 10,000-policy limit.

2. Retention Policies by Workload

• Exchange (email): 1,800 policies; up to 50 policies per mailbox (performance impact may occur beyond 25).

• SharePoint/OneDrive (all sites): 13 policies.

• SharePoint/OneDrive (specific locations): 2,600 policies.

  Note: These numbers also apply to eDiscovery and In-Place Hold policies.

3. Maximum Items per Policy (Static Scope)

• Exchange mailboxes: 1,000

• Microsoft 365 Groups: 1,000

• Teams (messages, chats, Copilot): 1,000

• Viva Engage: 1,000

• SharePoint sites: 100

• OneDrive accounts: 100

• Skype for Business: 1,000 users per policy

  Solution: Create multiple policies if these limits are exceeded, or use adaptive scopes for more flexibility.

4. Example Solutions for Policy Limits

• Exchange:

  • Create two policies if different retention periods are needed (e.g., 7 years for most users, 5 years for a subset).

• SharePoint:

  • Divide retention across multiple policies (e.g., 20 policies for 2,000 sites with 10-year retention, and 80 policies for 8,000 sites with 4-year retention).

5. Disposition Review Limits

• Items for Disposition Review:

  • 16 million items pending or approved.

  • 16 million automatically disposed without review.

• Reviewers:

  • 10 reviewers per stage (individuals or security groups).

  • 200 reviewers per tenant. Recommendation: Use mail-enabled security groups for larger organizations.

• Proof of Disposition: Retain records for up to 7 years.