What determines the retention duration of an object in the Active Directory Recycle Bin?

The retention duration of an object in the Active Directory Recycle Bin is determined by the tombstone lifetime. When an object is deleted in Active Directory, it is not immediately removed but rather marked as “tombstoned.” The tombstone lifetime is a specific amount of time that the tombstone remains in the directory before it is permanently removed. By default, this duration is set to 180 days.

During this retention period, the deleted object can be restored from the Recycle Bin. Once the tombstone lifetime expires, the deleted object and its associated data are permanently purged from Active Directory, making retrieval impossible. Understanding this concept is crucial for administrators to manage data restoration timelines and ensure that deleted objects can still be recovered when necessary.

Other options do not directly relate to the retention duration of objects in the Recycle Bin. For instance, backup policy settings pertain to overall data recovery strategies rather than the specific lifecycle of deleted objects. Similarly, while the domain functional level can influence certain features within Active Directory, it does not dictate the retention timelines of deleted objects. The last modification date does not affect how long a deleted object remains in the Recycle Bin. Thus, the tombstone lifetime is the critical factor in determining retention duration.