When you copy Exchange Online mailboxes with ShareGate Migrate, you can also copy litigation hold settings from the source mailbox to the destination mailbox.
This feature ensures that mailbox hold configurations remain aligned after a migration.
Note: This feature only copies the litigation hold settings. Retained mailbox data associated with the hold does not get migrated.
Prerequisites
The prerequisites of Copy Mailboxes apply.
Requires at least an Exchange Online Plan 2 license that includes litigation hold capability for your mailboxes.
What is a litigation hold?
A litigation hold is a mailbox-level setting in Exchange Online that preserves mailbox content.
When a mailbox has litigation hold enabled:
Mailbox content is preserved in the Recoverable Items folders.
Deleted items remain available.
Original versions of modified items are retained.
For more details, see Microsoft’s official documentation on litigation hold in Exchange Online.
How ShareGate copies litigation hold settings
Litigation hold settings can be migrated with Copy mailboxes.
The process runs at the end of the mailbox migration. ShareGate Migrate reads the litigation hold configuration on the destination and the source mailbox.
The two configurations are compared, and the destination is updated according to the options you selected.
If a destination mailbox has a litigation hold, ShareGate Migrate will never disable that litigation hold, even if the source mailbox you're copying into it does not have a litigation hold enabled.
If a destination mailbox does not have a litigation hold, ShareGate Migrate will enable one and copy the source's configuration if a litigation hold is present on the source mailbox you are migrating.
Which litigation hold settings are copied?
ShareGate reads and can update the following litigation hold properties on the destination mailbox:
Litigation hold turned on: Indicates whether the mailbox has litigation hold enabled.
Litigation hold date: The date and time when the hold was enabled. Automatically set by Exchange Online when enabling a hold.
Litigation hold owner: The account that enabled the hold. Automatically set by Exchange when a hold is enabled.
Hold duration: The duration (in days) for which items must be preserved. The default value is Unlimited.
Note visible to the user: Optional text visible to the mailbox user.
Web page with more information for the user: Optional URL with more information about the litigation hold.
Litigation hold copy options
You can turn on the option to copy litigation holds in Copy mailboxes' Copy options screen when you set up your migration operation.
Once activated, you also get the following setting:
Replace destination holds with source holds
This setting only affects mailboxes with litigation hold enabled at the destination.
With this setting turned on, a destination mailbox with a litigation hold enabled has its configuration replaced with that of the source mailbox.
With the setting off, ShareGate Migrate will not overwrite a destination mailbox's existing litigation hold configuration if that mailbox already has a litigation hold enabled.
Uncheck this copy option when:
Destination litigation hold settings must remain unchanged.
You only want to copy a litigation hold if one is not already configured at the destination.
Limitations
The following are currently not supported:
Holds from Google Workspace
eDiscovery holds
In-Place holds
Single Item Recovery
Delay holds
Retention policies
Data retained by a litigation hold (only settings are copied)