[German]I have a rather strange case here that a blog reader and administrator has encountered. In February 2025, he reported that contacts were being sporadically deleted in some of his users' Microsoft 365 accounts. Now the administrator notices that emails are also being deleted.
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Brief review of the contacts problem
In February 2025, blog reader Christian M. contacted us by email because he had encountered a problem in connection with Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online. The reader works in IT at a company where Microsoft 365 is also used in conjunction with Exchange Online.
In his email, the reader described that in the IT department of a company where Microsoft 365 is also used in conjunction with Exchange Online, all contacts have suddenly been deleted from a handful of Microsoft M365 accounts "for several days".
No pattern could be identified on the end user side; the company uses clients with Windows and MacOS. In the log files, the reader could see that suddenly a huge number of "MovedToDeletedItems" actions were recorded for one mailbox.
I described the situation in more detail in the German blog post Autsch: Kontakte werden in Microsoft 365 gelöscht (the English version may be found at Are contacts are suddenly deleted in Microsoft 365?. In this German comment, Frank Carius suspected that a client (smartphone etc.) could be causing this effect and made suggestions for an error analysis.
I interpret this German follow-up comment by Björn Kaiser to mean that he is also affected, but can't really see anything in the logs. And there is a third German comment that sounds like a message from an affected person. In the meantime, other affected persons have reported in the comments – so an "isolated case" can be ruled out.
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The administrator concerned contacted me on March 25, 2025 with the following status update: "Unfortunately, I have not been able to get any really helpful support from Microsoft on this case." Nothing causal can be seen in the log messages from Purview to Exchange Online. Microsoft Support then requested log messages from AzureAD. However, the affected client only has access to these log files for a maximum of seven days retrospectively. The administrator concerned was therefore no longer able to view any messages and the case remained unresolved.
Now mails are suddenly being deleted
German blog reader Christian M. has now reported the next "spooky" effect in the Microsoft 365/Exchange online environment. On March 25, 2025, a user suddenly found that emails were being deleted from the archive folder. The reader wrote that there are about 15,000 deleted mails so far, and you can see how the number in the archive folder is decreasing.
In the logs in Purview he sees, just as with the contacts at that time, massive events with MovedToDeletedItems, only this time from "/Archive" to "/Deleted Items". In his email dated 25.3.2025, the reader states that he currently has "no further information" and has not yet received any feedback from Microsoft Support. He hopes that Microsoft Support will be able to "look into the tenant" together with the reader and find the cause.
So far, however, I have not received any feedback from the reader in this regard – but I will add it if anything comes. The question remains as to whether this is an isolated case or whether there are others among the readership who are affected or whether there is any insight into the cause.
On March 28, 2025, another affected person appeared at GErman site administrator.de and unexpectedly posted the thread M365 mails aus posteingang unerwartet im gelöschte objekte ordner. Reads like the error description above.
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