O365- Manage retention Policies for Teams

Manage retention policies for Teams

Using the Security & Compliance Center

Create a retention policy

To create a retention policy for Teams chats and channel messages, do the following:

1. In the left navigation of the Security & Compliance Center, go to Information governance > Retention.

2. Select Create.

3. On the Name your policy page, enter a name and description for your policy, and then click Next.

4. On the Settings page, specify whether you want to retain data, delete it, or both, the retention period, and then click Next.

5. On the Choose locations page, do the following, and then click Next:

   • To apply the policy to channel messages, turn on Teams channel messages. If you want to apply the policy to specific teams in your organization, select Choose teams, and then select the teams that you want.

   • To apply the policy to chats, turn on Teams chats. If you want to apply the policy to specific users in your organization, select Choose users, and then select the users that you want.

     Note

     When you turn on Teams channel messages and/or Teams chats, all other locations are automatically turned off. A Teams retention policy can only include Teams locations.

     

     Important:

     Teams chats and channel messages aren't affected by retention policies applied to user or group mailboxes in the Exchange email or Microsoft 365 groups locations. Even though Teams chats and channel messages are stored in Exchange, they're only affected by retention policies applied to the Teams locations.

6. Review your settings, and then when you're ready, select Create this policy.

Note:

After a retention policy is configured for chat and channel messages, a timer job from the Exchange service periodically evaluates items in the hidden folder where these Teams messages are stored. The timer job takes up to seven days to run. When these items have expired their retention period, they are moved to the SubstrateHolds folder—another hidden folder that's in every user or group mailbox to store "soft-deleted" items before they are permanently deleted.

Edit a retention policy:

To edit a Teams retention policy, do the following:

1. In the left navigation of the Security & Compliance Center, go to Information governance > Retention.

2. In the list of retention policies, select the check box next to the retention policy you want to edit.

3. Select Edit next to what you want to edit, make your changes, click Save, and then click Close.

   

Important

If you have configured specific teams or specific users to include for Teams channel messages or Teams chats, and edit these to remove the last one for the location, the configuration for that location reverts to All. Make sure this is the configuration that you intend before you save the policy.

In this scenario, toggle the location off if you don't want the All setting for the Teams channel messages or Teams chat messages to be subject to the retention policy. Alternatively, specify excludes to be exempt from the policy.

Delete a retention policy:

To delete a Teams retention policy, do the following:

1. In the left navigation of the Security & Compliance Center, go to Information governance > Retention.
2. In the list of retention policies, select the check box next to the retention policy you want to delete.
3. Select Delete policy.