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PennO365 Data Recovery

Summary

Unlike ISC's legacy Zimbra and Exchange services, the PennO365 environment does not store mail or calendar data on-premise. This data is now stored on Microsoft servers off-premise.  Microsoft does not offer comprehensive, service-level data recovery tools. Instead, Microsoft provides Recover Deleted Items, a self-help tool which enable users to restore their own email and calendar within 28 days.

ISC recommends deleted item recovery be done in Outlook on the Web. While recovery is possible in Outlook for Windows, it is not recommended. Other email clients, like Outlook for Mac and Apple Mail, do not offer this functionality.

Definitions

Deleted Items – The folder containing mail, calendar events, contacts, or tasks the user has deleted. Items remain in the Deleted Items folder for 30 days, after which they are moved to the Recoverable Items folder.

Recoverable Items (formerly known as the Dumpster) – A hidden folder where items are moved when a user performs one of the following actions:

  • Deletes an item from the Deleted Items Folder
  • Empties the Deleted Items folder
  • Permanently deletes an item with Shift+Delete

Items remain in the Recoverable Items folder for 14 days, after which they are permanently deleted and irrecoverable – even by Microsoft. From the time an item is deleted by the user, they have 44 days total before the item cannot be recovered.

Recovering Deleted Items

There are two folders to recover items from, Deleted Items and Recoverable Items. How the user recovers an item depends on which folder the item is in.

Recover an item in Deleted Items
  1. Log in to Outlook on the Web.
  2. Navigate to the Deleted Items folder.
  3. Right-click on the item(s) to be recovered, select Move, then the destination folder. (Note: mail can only be moved to a mail folder, Contacts to the Contacts folder, calendar events to the Calendar folder, etc.)
Recover an item in Recoverable Items
  1. Log in to Outlook on the Web.
  2. Right-click on the Deleted Items folder, select "recover deleted items…"
  3. Select the item to recover and click Recover. The item is moved to the default location for its type (e.g., email is moved to user’s Inbox, calendar events are moved to user’s Calendar, etc.)

 

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