You receive a "One or more users need an assigned license in order to retain an Exchange Online mailbox or archive" message on the Users page of the Microsoft 365 portal

Problem

When you view the Users page of the Microsoft 365 portal in Microsoft 365, you receive the following message:

One or more users need an assigned license in order to retain an Exchange Online mailbox. Create a new view and select "Users with mailboxes and no licenses." Select all users in the list, and then click "Edit" to assign licenses.

Additionally, you experience the following symptoms:

  • Exchange Online licenses are missing for users who were created in the Exchange admin center or in Exchange Online PowerShell.
  • Sudden mailbox loss for users who were created in the Exchange admin center or Exchange Online PowerShell.

Cause

This occurs if the user mailboxes are created in the Exchange admin center, and the users aren't yet assigned a license.

Solution

Create a view in the Microsoft 365 portal to display a list of users who have mailboxes but who don't have a license. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 portal (https://portal.office.com) as an admin.
  2. Click users and groups, and then click active users.
  3. Click Filter ( ), and then in the drop-down box, click Unlicensed users.
    NoteTo assign a license to a user, double-click the user. On the "Assign licenses" page, click to select the check boxes next to the items that you want to assign, and then click save.

More information

Users must be assigned a license, or the mailbox is deleted. From the time that the user mailbox is created in the Exchange admin center, admins have 30 days to assign the user a license in the Microsoft 365 portal.

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