What is the reasoning behind not being able to apply a move to the Inbox and other default folders. I would like to move items to the archive mailbox after a year. I don't want to have to rely on a user to move it to a Personal Folder first. Is this possible?

I seriously don't understand what you are asking.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I can't do a move to archive on my inbox. What is the reasoning for this? (Just out of curiousity) So if I can't do a move to archive on my inbox and other default folders, how do I archive them? I don't want to have to setup personal folder policies and rely on users to move emails to folders.

What Exchange version, service pack and rollup hotfix level are you running? What exactly are you doing and exactly what error messages do you get? Have you created an archive mailbox?Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Exchange 2010 SP1 Rollup 2. I havent' tried anything yet, just reading various technet articles and such. Yes, I've created an archive mailbox in a seperate store. I did end up trying to run a retention policy against my mailbox just to see and you can't move messages directly from your inbox to an archive mailbox. I get the following error: Summary: 1 item(s). 0 succeeded, 1 failed. Elapsed time: 00:00:00 Inbox Default Retention Failed Error: Unable to execute the task, reason: MoveToArchive can only be applied to tags of type default ('All'), Personal or RecoverableItems. Click here for help... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms.exch.err.default(EXCHG.141).aspx?v=14.1.218.11&t=exchgf1&e=ms.exch.err.Ex212177 Exchange Management Shell command attempted: New-RetentionPolicyTag -Name 'Inbox Default Retention' -Type 'Inbox' -Comment '' -AgeLimitForRetention '365.00:00:00' -RetentionAction 'MoveToArchive' -RetentionEnabled $true Elapsed Time: 00:00:00 So how do I archive inbox items? I would basically want a blanket policy that moves everything to the archive folder after 1 year.

Hi, It is by design. The Move to Archive action is available only for DPTs , personal folder tags and recoverable items tags. You can't create an RPT with the Move to Archive action. More information about “Move to Archive” http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd297955.aspxPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

So, if I want to ensure that all Emails in the Sent Items Folder are archived after 6 months, how do I do that? FWIW, if you can't apply a 'Move to Archive' Tag to 'Sent Items', then 'Move to Archive' shouldn't be enabled in the combo box for 'Action to Take . . .'; you should only be able to choose one of the Delete options. I don't want to delete all users' Sent Items after (eg) 6 months. I want them Archived so they clear space on Exchange yet allow the user to recover them or search for them years later, if need be. Does this mean that I can't do that: my only option is delete or nothing?Live Long and Prosper