Forum Discussion
What´s the reason that I can´t delete chats
Does anybody know why it is not pssible to delete old chats?
Hello there Sophie_Bruehl
The truth is that you can't delete old chats, this is what we call "by-design". There’s no option to delete a full chat in Microsoft Teams. But you should be able to delete or edit your own messages.
What you can right now, are the following options:
- Deleting a single chat message on Microsoft Teams- Hiding the chat: Hiding a chat keeps it out of your way on Teams. To hide a chat, right-click on the chat name, and click hide. Once you hide the chat, it only shows up again when someone sends a new message to it. You can also bring the chat back by searching for a participant’s name or the chat in your search box. Right-click on the chat and choose to unhide to see it again.
- Muting the chat: You can also mute a chat if you’re sure you don’t want to hear from it again. You’ll still be in the conversation when you mute a chat but won’t receive notifications. Right-click the chat and choose the mute option. You can then hide the chat, too if you like. Right-click and click unmute to receive notifications again.
If you’re worried about long-term chat archives, you can check your admin settings. Teams chat, file, and channel information is saved indefinitely by default on Teams. You can change retention policies in the Microsoft 365 compliance center.
When you set a retention policy for Teams, you can choose which information you keep. Your policy will allow you to:
- Retain Teams messages for a specific period then delete it
- Delete Teams chats or channel messages after a specific duration.Last but not least, you can vote on the UserVoice for this feature to come out as soon as possible - the posts with more votes, get more attention for the backend/design team.
Some examples here for this "delete chat feature": https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41353873-delete-chat-conversations ; https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/40870207-delete-chat ; https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41461267-delete-chat-message
Hope this helps 🙂
Saw this today:
Confirmed via M365 Roadmap that it is rolling out for commercial as well as government tenants.
This is a very simple procedure to solve the issue.
First click the three-dot option, then click delete. If there is not available delete option then click more option and find delete. Or here is the complete guide that will help to resolve the issue.
UPDATE AS OF 26th August 2022 :
An official reply from Microsoft Teams has been made on the teams feedback portal :By the way, Microsft has abandonned usersvoice site now it's here :
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/50748037-5e7d-ec11-8d21-002248226797- Cool! I can read it, but can't upvote, because the feedback portal isn't open to GCC:
"Community feedback is currently supported for MSA, as well as AAD users in commercial clouds."
It looks like it is an option now, but only for Home & Small Business:
From Delete a chat in Teams for personal and small business use (microsoft.com)
Which almost makes sense; workplaces, education, & government would want retention to be subject to compliance policies & not the individual employee/student
...except I presumed deleting a chat only deletes it from the end-users client, because it could exists in the hidden Teams folder in everyone's mailbox, and/or that we'd still be able to discover deleted chats like we can find deleted emails in eDiscovery.
FYI: As noted in the April 19, 2022 post, the option to delete an entire chat thread was only available to Personal accounts.
Now it's available to Education and Home and Small Business too.
Still apparently not an option for GCC, GCC High, DOD, or other cloud instances, though.
sd adm Sometimes a colleague might send an inappropriate message and I would want to remove that from my screen permanently. Inappropriate could mean that it contains foul language, it might give a password or door code, it could contain unkind remarks about another co-worker, it could contain racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. content, or something else. It could even be an honest mistake, e.g. a typo that turns the intended innocent word into an offensive one or somebody using the wrong word because they don't understand its true meaning.
It should be possible to delete one or more individual messages from any given sender. At least they should disappear from my side of the chat - the sender might be notified that the message had been deleted.
DH-24 ,
(This is sd adm, my work email changed, but Tech Community doesn't allow you to transfer accounts unless you sign up with a personal email
).
I'm not arguing in favor of the merits of not being able to delete.
I agree with you & the other posters!
I just pointed out that per MS documentation, it is possible to delete chats, but only in Home & Small Business.
I further said the only justification I could imagine (corporate retention policies having precedence) didn't make sense on further consideration (the messages should still exist in the hidden Outlook folder for eDiscovery)
- pedro_salvador_gomes
Microsoft
Hello there Sophie_Bruehl
The truth is that you can't delete old chats, this is what we call "by-design". There’s no option to delete a full chat in Microsoft Teams. But you should be able to delete or edit your own messages.
What you can right now, are the following options:
- Deleting a single chat message on Microsoft Teams- Hiding the chat: Hiding a chat keeps it out of your way on Teams. To hide a chat, right-click on the chat name, and click hide. Once you hide the chat, it only shows up again when someone sends a new message to it. You can also bring the chat back by searching for a participant’s name or the chat in your search box. Right-click on the chat and choose to unhide to see it again.
- Muting the chat: You can also mute a chat if you’re sure you don’t want to hear from it again. You’ll still be in the conversation when you mute a chat but won’t receive notifications. Right-click the chat and choose the mute option. You can then hide the chat, too if you like. Right-click and click unmute to receive notifications again.
If you’re worried about long-term chat archives, you can check your admin settings. Teams chat, file, and channel information is saved indefinitely by default on Teams. You can change retention policies in the Microsoft 365 compliance center.
When you set a retention policy for Teams, you can choose which information you keep. Your policy will allow you to:
- Retain Teams messages for a specific period then delete it
- Delete Teams chats or channel messages after a specific duration.Last but not least, you can vote on the UserVoice for this feature to come out as soon as possible - the posts with more votes, get more attention for the backend/design team.
Some examples here for this "delete chat feature": https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41353873-delete-chat-conversations ; https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/40870207-delete-chat ; https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41461267-delete-chat-message
Hope this helps 🙂
Hello pedro_salvador_gomes,
None of the uservoice links ( https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41353873-delete-chat-conversations
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/40870207-delete-chat
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41461267-delete-chat-message ) work. Can you please update links?
All the best.
MS dropped UserVoice in 2021.
They use many sites for feedback now, which is frustrating to keep track of, and also because some of those sites (i.e, the Feedback portals) are only available to commercial & personal accounts.SEE https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/uservoice-pages-430e1a78-e016-472a-a10f-dc2a3df3450a
It's moot in this case, though, b/c the ability to delete chats is already rolling out, so there's no need to upvote it.
I confirmed a few GCC users I know already see the delete chats option.
Since GCC usually gets features AFTER commercial & home tenants, that probably means it'll be marked complete soon.
pedro_salvador_gomesthat a GDPR breach.
Marco_inThai in what way?
If a request to be forgotten is made under Article 17 then you would use a DSR to discover then delete data pertaining to an individual, this thread is about user functionality not platform capabilities for GDPR. See Manage GDPR data subject requests with UDS case tool in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal | Microsoft Docs
- It is absurd !!!!!!!!!!!
WHY THE HELL ????????????????
For my privacy i want to be able to delete it !!!
I use teams only for speak and meeting.
I've absolutely stopped to using it as a chat.
As an IT i'm looking for another chat system
