Backup add-on usage

M365 Security Plus is licensed based on the number of Exchange Online mailboxes that are backed up.

When you add a user mailbox to a backup schedule, a license is automatically applied to the mailbox. You can apply licenses for other mailboxes, such as shared mailboxes, archive mailboxes, equipment mailboxes, room mailboxes, discovery mailboxes, and Microsoft 365 group mailboxes, at no additional cost. This section describes how you can remove licenses assigned to mailboxes.

The screen displays the following information at the top of the table:

• Total Licenses: The number of licenses purchased.
• Used Licenses: The number of mailboxes licensed by the product.
• Remaining Licenses: The number of unused licenses.

When you remove a license assigned to a mailbox, all backups of the mailbox will be deleted from your backup repository and the mailbox will be removed from any backup schedules. However, if you wish to retain the backups, follow these steps:

• Remove the mailbox from all the backup jobs it is a part of. This will ensure no more incremental backups for this mailbox.
• M365 Security Plus will monitor the existing backup file of the mailbox.
• After 31 days of inactivity, i.e., if no incremental backups of that particular mailbox has been performed, the license will be automatically unassigned from the mailbox and the backup will be retained for future restores.

Note: The license is consumed only by the user mailbox. Shared mailboxes, resource mailboxes, and linked mailboxes can be backed up in the same backup schedule without any restrictions.

You can remove licenses assigned to all mailboxes or only selected mailboxes within a tenant by following these steps:

1. Log in to M365 Security Plus and click the Auditing & Monitoring tab.
2. Navigate to Backup > Exchange Online > Backup Add-on Usage.
3. Select the required tenant from the Microsoft 365 Tenant drop-down menu.
4. To remove licenses from all mailboxes, select the check box at the top of the table and click the revoke icon .
5. To remove licenses from specific mailboxes, select the check box next to the required mailbox(es) and click the revoke icon .
6. To quickly locate a mailbox, use the search icon at the top of the table and search by the user's name or email address.