How to clean up the Recoverable Items folder in Outlook?

Our Exchange admin says my Recoverable Items folder is at its 30GB quota and new deletions are failing. I cannot even see this folder in Outlook.

How do I empty it myself, or is this admin only territory? Office 365 mailbox, Outlook 2016 desktop.

Recoverable Items is a hidden dumpster that keeps everything you delete for the retention window, usually 14 or 30 days. You cannot browse it like a folder but you can purge it from the desktop client.

1

In Outlook select the Deleted Items folder.

2

On the Home or Folder ribbon click Recover Deleted Items From Server.

3

In the dialog press Ctrl+A to select everything, choose Purge Selected Items and confirm. This is permanent.

4

Repeat after a few minutes if the list was too large to load in one pass.

Two caveats. If the mailbox is under Litigation Hold or a retention policy, purged items move to a hold area only an admin can clear and your quota may not drop. And if the folder filled because of a sync loop rather than real deletions, purging treats the symptom, your admin should check for a device endlessly resyncing the mailbox.

Purged in four passes and the admin confirms the quota dropped from 30GB to 400MB. No hold on my mailbox so it cleared properly.