As we shared in November 2021, Stream (Classic) will be retired as customers transition to the new Stream platform built on SharePoint. Today, we are sharing the update that Microsoft will retire Stream (Classic) on February 15, 2024 (for commercial and education customers) and on July 30, 2024 (for GCC customers). The successor service, Stream (on SharePoint), entered general availability in October 2022, and has been widely popular since we first announced it more than two years ago. In 2022, billions of videos were uploaded to the service, and its use continues to grow rapidly because of how simple it is to create, discover, and view video across Microsoft 365.
Stream (on SharePoint) puts video in the flow of work
Stream (on SharePoint) brings you many of the same capabilities of Stream (Classic) while also allowing you to use video in many everyday work and school apps such as Teams, Office.com, Yammer, Viva, PowerPoint, and SharePoint. With video now in the flow of your work, you can more easily create and discover video content for collaboration and knowledge transfer. Here’s a quick look at the capabilities of Stream (on SharePoint) that are not available in Stream (Classic):
- Record videos with advanced tools directly in the camera like background blur or replace, inking, text, audio only, and teleprompter.
- Search for videos anywhere in Microsoft 365. You can now find videos and Teams meeting recordings across Microsoft 365 by searching keywords such as those found in the title, description, chapter names, or transcripts of videos.
- Find what you need quickly on the Stream start page in Office. The new start page shows recent, shared, and favorite videos, with playlists coming soon. (Note: The Stream start page doesn't show you videos in Stream (Classic); it only shows videos directly stored in Microsoft 365.)
- View Teams meeting recordings with transcripts, chapters, timeline markers, speaker attribution, and comments.
- Easily manage video files with the same security, admin controls, multi-geo support, compliance (eDiscovery, legal hold, retention, and data loss prevention policies), permissions, and sharing controls as the rest of your files in SharePoint and OneDrive.
- Create custom page, site, and portal experiences to feature videos as part of your intranet and Viva Connections.
- Share videos the same way you would any other file in Microsoft 365 with support for Guests, People in your Organization links, or unauthenticated external sharing with “anyone” links.
- Get analytics per video, for all the videos in a site, or see who has watched your video.
- Add videos to the Viva Connections Feed.
- Use APIs based on the Microsoft Graph Files API for basic video file operations.
These benefits add up to ease of video management for admins and more productivity for your teams. Stream (on SharePoint) helps you communicate visually to explain, learn, and collaborate across teams.
Stream (Classic) retirement timeline
While Stream (Classic) for will be available until February 15, 2024 (and July 30, 2024 for GGC customers), we plan to retire some functionality sooner than 2024. For example, we will soon disable the uploading of videos to Stream (Classic). See the Stream (Classic) retirement timeline for the most current dates in the retirement process.
The timeline for Stream (Classic) retirement (for non-GCC customers) is as follows:
February 15, 2023 - Start of one-year countdown to retirement, and Stream (Classic) migration tool enters general availability with these enhancements:
-Single video embed codes redirect and play inline.
-New settings added to schedule/delay blocking of uploads and tenant disablement.
May 15, 2023 - No new videos can be uploaded to Stream (Classic). Admins can delay this by three months if needed.
August 15, 2023 - No new videos can be uploaded to Stream (Classic).
October 15, 2023 - Users can no longer access or use Stream (Classic). Admins can delay this change by four months if needed.
February 15, 2024 - Stream (Classic) is fully retired and automatically disabled.
-Users and admins can no longer access or use Stream (Classic).
-Any remaining content in Stream (Classic) that wasn't migrated will begin being deleted.
February 15, 2025 - Stream (Classic) links and embed codes will no longer redirect to the migrated videos in OneDrive and SharePoint.
If you are a Stream admin, we recommend that you begin planning your organization’s migration to Stream (on SharePoint) and onboarding your users to this service as soon as possible.
Migrating your content from Stream (Classic) to Stream (on SharePoint)
To support your move to Stream (on SharePoint), we have created a migration tool that allows you to transfer all your Stream (Classic) video to Stream (on SharePoint). The tool also brings over metadata, links, and permissions associated with your Stream (Classic) audio and video content.
To begin using the migration tool, please review our migration support and migration strategies guides. The migration process involves both moving your content and directing your users to Stream (on SharePoint), which has both a different entry point and look and feel than Stream (Classic). Follow the adoption guides for ideas on how to help your users start using Stream (on SharePoint). We recommend you begin the migration planning process soon.
For more information on the retirement of Stream (Classic) see our FAQs.
For more information on Stream (on SharePoint) see our IT Admin guides and end user help documents.
Stream live events retirement
We have not yet announced a retirement date for Stream live events. In the coming months, we will announce the retirement date of Stream live events and give you a six-month period to begin using the successor service, Teams live events with external encoder support, which is currently in public preview.
Feedback & learn more
We welcome your feedback. Feel free to comment below or share and vote on ideas in the Stream feedback portal.
Lastly, we’d like to invite you to join our customer connections office hours. In this twice-monthly meeting, we answer your questions, share our plans, learn more about your video needs, and get your feedback. To get on the meeting invite list, you can sign up at aka.ms/StreamConnect.
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