Configuring Copilot chat retention policies

Your 30-day retain-and-delete policy operates on individual Copilot interaction messages, rather than restarting one timer for the entire conversation. In your example, the Day 1 messages keep their original retention age when you add messages on Day 20; the later messages have their own age. Background processing and holds mean expiry is not a promise of immediate deletion from either the interface or compliance storage.

Adding a conversation to a Copilot Notebook should not be treated as extending chat retention. Microsoft distinguishes chat conversations from the notebook’s SharePoint Embedded content; notebooks are not an exemption from the interaction policy.

For material that your organization needs longer, agree an approved recordkeeping approach with the compliance administrator. Save the required content to Word in an appropriately governed SharePoint library and confirm that library’s applicable retention policies or labels. Validate the result with eDiscovery, rather than relying on continued visibility in Copilot.