Hey all! Thanks for all the discussion and feedback when posting about experiencing a bug in Teams. We realize these can really disrupt flow and hearing directly from this community shapes what we prioritize.  

Submitting feedback 

If you run into a bug, the fastest way to get it in front of engineering is inside Teams: Settings and more > Feedback > Report a problem (use Suggest a feature for feature requests). Including logs and screenshots makes a huge difference. The more details the better: it gives our team exactly what they need to triage quickly. If you do not see the Report a problem or Suggest a feature options, please contact your admin. 

We monitor these closely, and this is the most direct way to solve bugs and helps our team address them sooner. That’s a win-win for everyone. 

Hi everyone! There’s been some questions and discussions about chat archiving and retention and we wanted to jump in to offer some clarity. Applicability will depend on your company’s retention policy which we go into later in the post.

Archiving Chats (user-level)

Microsoft Teams does not have a native “archive this chat” button for individual chats. That’s by design: Teams treats chats as part of Microsoft 365 data governance rather than user‑managed files. We don’t recommend using third party tools, but in a pinch, you can load the entirety of the chat you want to save in the Teams web app and print to PDF.

For ongoing chat archiving, add important information to the notes feature on each chat. At the top right of the chat window, select the Open notes icon. This way, if a coworker puts in their notice, you can copy and paste all essential information from the notes instead of printing the entire chat history.

Retention policies: what’s kept, where, and for how long

Whether someone can edit or delete a channel post is controlled by specific Teams settings, not just “retention” in general, for example: Teams admin center → Messaging policies (settings such as Edit sent messages, Delete sent messages, and Owners can delete sent messages), Team settings → Member permissions (e.g., whether members can delete/edit their own messages), and (where enabled) Channel moderation settings that can restrict who can post or reply. Separately, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management Retention policies can be configured by organizations to determine how long messages are kept for compliance, even if a user deletes them in Teams.

Microsoft Purview retention policy settings can take precedence over user actions. For example, if you delete a message, it may disappear from Teams, but a retained copy can still be preserved for compliance and legal purposes for the length of the retention period (for example, 7 years). Conversely, retention policies can also be used by organizations to delete Teams messages after a defined time period.

Access to retained content is controlled through Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and is intended for approved scenarios (for example, investigations, regulatory requests, or litigation), not day-to-day browsing. Access to Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is strictly controlled through role based access control.

What is eDiscovery? (admin-level)

eDiscovery (electronic discovery) is a set of Microsoft Purview tools that helps authorized compliance administrators find, preserve, and export electronically stored information (ESI) to meet legal, regulatory, and internal investigation requirements.

Behind the scenes, compliance copies of Teams chats and channel messages are stored in a user hidden folder within Exchange Online mailboxes. In addition to message text, retained content can include files and links shared in the message, images or other inline content, meeting-related artifacts, and message metadata (such as timestamps and participants), depending on the content type and your organization’s configuration.

https://preview.redd.it/32wirh3rozxg1.png?width=621&format=png&auto=webp&s=860c2da2d1b94425a9899bff7ed42e15d6d84aec

For a deeper dive on eDiscovery and retention, check out these articles:

Finding content in Microsoft Teams in eDiscovery | Microsoft Learn

Learn about retention for Teams | Microsoft Learn

Freezing Teams or channels (team-level)

Team and channel owners can archive a channel within a team when it’s no longer active but is needed for reference. This preserves the conversation and associated files as read-only and they remain searchable. Archived channels can be reactivated if needed.

To archive a channel: Find the channel you want to archive on your list of teams and channels. Select the channel, then choose More options → Archive channel.

We hope this clarity helps you understand the nuances that go into chat retention and gives you some peace of mind around what’s visible or retained on Teams.