Files gone missing in Teams chat >> Files

[Johan Borg]

Hi,

One of my colleagues have been on an extended leave (6 months+), now that he is back we decided to revisit some files we shared before he left.

To our surprise, our Chat >> Files area was completely empty.

Looking at my local \OneDrive - [CompanyName]\Microsoft Teams Chat Files\ folder, the files still seem to be stored (not sure if up to date versions, seems like some of them are older than expected)

Trying to copy one of these files back to Chat >> User >> Files gives the A file with this name already exists in this folder. What would you like to do? message, even though no files are visible in the Files tab.

Is this a known issue/feature? Does teams "clear out" old files shared in chat after some time?

Best regards,

Johan

[#2]

Did you colleague originally upload / share the files? If so, they would have been stored in his OneDrive for Business.

Depending on what happened to his user account when he was away, his OneDrive for Business may have been deleted - this would explain the behaviour you are seeing.

[#3]

@Rob Ellis 

Hi Rob,

Yes it was my co worker who shared the example file, but it did not show up for him either. We also had many files shared, by both parties, and all were missing.

His O365 has been active all the time he was on leave, I asked him, and he says he did not remove anything.

Best regards,

Johan

[#4]

I would recommend to open a support ticket so they can investigate what can have happened here

[#5]

I don't think it should remove them, but you should spread the word to not use these files as long term storage. The issue is you already have the file in microsoft Teams chat file so you can't drag the file or upload again. What you would do to add again is use the attach icon and OneDrive option and navigate to the Teams chat files to add it again.

The list in the chat files tab is nothing more than a breadcrumb Teams adds in there for a link to files that were shared over time, the files live in that folder or are shared where they live when you use the OneDrive option which is usually the way I like to teach users to use instead of uploading "Copies" to maintain the whole single source of truth.