Sharepoint 2013 : Removing an eDiscovery hold, Accessing deleted content under legal hold

1. Removing an eDiscovery hold

There are a number of reasons that you might remove a current hold. For instance, the case or regulatory investigation might have completed, or you might want to replace a general hold with a more targeted hold after further details have emerged from an investigation. Regardless of the reason, If you have authorized access to the eDiscovery Case, you can disable a hold associated with any SharePoint 2013 eDiscovery Set.

Remove an eDiscovery hold

1. Navigate to the eDiscovery Case Home page and then, on the Quick Launch bar, click the eDiscovery Sets link.

2. On the the eDiscovery Sets page, click the link under the name of the set that you want to modify.

   

3. On the page for the specific eDiscovery set, click the Disable In-Place Hold option.

4. Click Save.

   

2. Accessing deleted content under legal hold

After content is placed under an in-place hold, users can continue to use content normally within the affected sites (this was a change from previous versions of SharePoint, which simply blocked modification or deletion of affected files). When an edit or deletion is made to that content, a uniquely named copy of the original content is placed in a special library called the Preservation Hold Library within the same site. This library can be viewed directly by site collection administrators, and it is also used when consolidating and exporting content by using eDiscovery Queries.

Access content in a Preservation Hold library

1. On the site containing the content that’s been placed on hold, click the Settings button (the small gear icon next to the name of the logged-on user). On the menu that appears, click Site Contents.

   

2. On the Site Contents page, click the Preservation Hold Library.

   

   Tip

   If a file is changed multiple times, the intermediate versions are not saved. Only the version that existed at the time of the hold is preserved.

   Tip

   If you are unable to locate the Preservation Hold library within a site with an in-place hold configured, this might be because you are not a site collection administrator for the site (the library is only visible to users added as the site collection administrator or granted special permissions through the web application by IT staff).

3. In the Preservation Hold Library, select an item by clicking to the left of the item’s icon.

4. On the ribbon, click the Files tab.

5. In the Manage group, click the View Properties button.

   

6. Inspect the document properties. You can see the preservation date or even open the document for viewing. Click Close to return to the library.

   
   

   Any attempt to delete content from this library will result in an error, as the files remain under in-place hold.

Tip

The Preservation Hold Library is maintained by SharePoint processes configured by your administrator. As in-place holds expire or are removed, the content will be removed from these libraries over time.