Forum Discussion
Purview DLM Disposition Review Timeline of Deletion
After approving a disposition in Microsoft Purview Records Management, the item is moved into the Disposed items list in the Purview portal. However, the actual deletion from SharePoint (or OneDrive) is not happening. Could you please help understand what is the timeframe for the actual deletion to happen? What are the behind the scene activities at SharePoint level? How does the items marked for deletion through the disposition workflow gets picked up? Is there a way to expedite the deletion process by assigning another label rather than approving at the disposition stage? Even after deletion, the items sit in the site collection recycle bin. Does it need to be manually deleted from the Recycle Bin or is there any way to automate the removal process from Recycle Bin itself.
Appreciate any ideas.
1 Reply
Great set of questions — disposition in Microsoft Purview can be a little confusing because the approval in Purview is just the trigger, not the final deletion action itself.
Points to clarify:
Disposition vs. Deletion Timing
- When you approve a disposition in Purview Records Management, the item is moved to the Disposed items list in Purview.
- The actual deletion from SharePoint or OneDrive doesn’t happen immediately; it is processed by backend timer jobs and can take up to 7 days (sometimes sooner, but not guaranteed).
Behind the Scenes in SharePoint/OneDrive
- Once the disposition job is picked up, the item is moved into the site collection Recycle Bin.
- From there, SharePoint’s standard retention and deletion cycles apply:
o First-stage Recycle Bin: items remain for 93 days by default (unless manually cleared).
o After that, they move to the second-stage Recycle Bin (site collection admin) until the 93-day limit is reached, after which deletion is permanent.
Expediting Deletion
- There’s no supported way to bypass the disposition stage by re-labeling; once a record has a retention label with disposition review, it has to follow that lifecycle.
- If immediate removal is critical, you would need to:
o Apply a retention label/policy with “Delete only” (no disposition), or
o Manually delete the item after approval (which still sends it into the Recycle Bin).
Recycle Bin Automation
- Currently, the Recycle Bin is a safety net and there is no Purview automation to clear it.
- Deletion from the Recycle Bin has to follow SharePoint’s native retention cycle or be manually cleared by site collection admins.
in short:
Disposition approval doesn’t equal instant deletion — it triggers a backend cleanup job that can take a few days.
The Recycle Bin stage is expected behavior, and full permanent deletion still follows the standard 93-day lifecycle.
Expediting deletion would require using different retention label settings, not disposition workflows.
