Office 365 - Teams Features, Storage Locations, and Retention
This article provides a summary of Teams features and their corresponding storage location within the Office 365 environment as well as the retention schedule for each.
Teams Feature | Storage Location | Retention Schedule | Record May be Deleted by Individual User | Additional Information |
Chats (1:1 and group) Conversations | Stored in users' Outlook mailbox | Retained until the user leaves UWM and their account is deleted | No | External (non-UWM) chat participants also have the conversation saved in their mailbox |
Channel Conversations | Stored in Azure (O365 back-end) environment | Retained until the Team owners delete the Team or until the owners allow the Team to expire after 1 year of inactivity | Yes, by Team owners |
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Chats (1:1 and group) File Storage | Stored in the sharing user's OneDrive space: "Microsoft Teams Chat Files" folder | Retained until the sharing user's account is deleted and the files are deleted with the account | Yes, by the sharing user | All members of the chat have access to the file that was shared If a participant in a chat is an external user and shares files, they are stored in the external user's (non-UWM) OneDrive space. Once the external user leaves the chat, files they shared will leave with them |
Channel File Storage | Stored in the document library for the channel in the Team site Private channels each have their own Team site and document libraries for storage | Retained until they are deleted by members or owners, until the owners delete the team, or until the owners allow the Team to expire after 1 year of inactivity | Yes |
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Voicemail Messages | Stored in users' Outlook mailbox | Retained until the user deletes them or until the user leaves UWM and their account is deleted | Yes |
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Meeting Recordings (1:1 and Group) | Stored in the OneDrive account of the user who started the recording in a folder named Recordings
| Retained in users' OneDrive spaces until they are deleted by the user or until the user leaves UWM and their account is deleted | Yes, by the individual who started the recording | Anyone except external guests can start or stop a meeting recording and meeting participants are notified when recording is started All meeting invitees, except for external users, will automatically get a personally shared link. External users will need to be explicitly added to the shared list by the meeting organizer or the person who started the meeting recording. |
| Meeting Recordings (Channel Meetings) | The recording is stored in the Teams site document library in a folder named Recordings | Recordings that are shared with a group or team channel are retained until the group owners delete them or until the owner allows the group to expire after 1 year of inactivity | Yes, by Team owners | For Teams channel meetings, the recording is shared with the Team or channel members for private channels and permissions are inherited from the owners and members list in the channel |
Meeting Transcriptions | Stored in the OneDrive account of the user who started the recording | Retained in users' OneDrive spaces until they are deleted by the user or until the user leaves UWM and their account is deleted Recordings that are shared with a group or team channel are retained until the group owners delete them or until the owner allows the group to expire after 1 year of inactivity | Yes, by the individual who started the recording | The user who started the Teams meeting recording needs to enable transcriptions for the meeting recording
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Live Events & Captions | Live events produced directly in Teams are stored in Azure | Recordings are retained in Azure until the event producer deletes them | Yes, by the event producer | Live event producers can enable captions when setting up the event Attendees can turn on live captions if the event producer enables them for the event |