Forum Discussion
Notifications for files deleted under retention policies
Hello,
I have a client who has implemented Retention policies to delete files on SharePoint after 2 years. It is working as intended, but a pain point is users would like to be notified when a file was going to be deleted. I've looked all through the https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/retention?view=o365-worldwide and haven't found the ability to send an email out to site owners when their files are about to meet the 2 year mark and get deleted. Is there such ability?
I am not finding it and if not, can only think of the following solutions:
- Set alert on library for weekly deletions
- Create Views that show items modified 20-24 months ago (to be deleted)
- Send email to site owners with link to recycle bin to check monthly and pick the trash 🙂
- Use an admin tool such as ShareGate to provide site file reports of all files last modified 20-24 months ago.
- Maybe Set alert on Preservation Hold library to send Site Owners daily/weekly alert for items that are about to get deleted?
Am I missing something or does somebody have a better solution? Much thanks!
6 Replies
- Hi, nothing I'm aware of. Considering there has been a decision made to delete the information after 2 years, this organization might need to re-evaluate the retention policies settings instead of all these ad-hoc workarounds.
- Thanks Christian, agreed, it defeats the purpose. Can't have both.
In case anybody is following this thread, I did come up with Automated reports to send Site Owners a list of all files where the retention policy will be reached in the next 6 months so they can modify them before they get deleted. could probably do the same in PowerShell, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something like a checkbox somewhere...
