The agreementwas in the chat.The chat is gone.
Much of the daily coordination now happens in private and group chats, not in channels and not in the mailbox. Conbool captures those histories per user on a schedule and hands them out as a readable file when they are needed.
Why chat histories disappear sooner than expected
Four ways agreements vanish from Teams.
Deleted messages have a short window
Anything deleted in Teams stays recoverable for a few weeks only. An agreement, however, is usually missed once it is being disputed.
Someone leaves the company
The chat history goes with the account. Successors and the business unit are left without the context in which the decisions were made.
Chat has become the place of record
Commitments, approvals and discounts sit in a chat window instead of an email. In an audit or a dispute, that history is exactly what counts.
A compromised account cleans up
Whoever takes over an account deletes the traces first. Once the short windows have passed, they are gone from the platform for good.
Histories stay readable in the captured points in time, even once the account no longer exists in the tenant.
The part that never lived in the mailbox.
Chats belong to the participants, not to a team. They are captured per user, and what is handed out is a coherent history.
Private and group chats per user
Shared files with the history
Older points in time after the deletion windows
Output as a readable history
How chat histories are captured
Per user, not per team. On the same schedule as mailbox and OneDrive.
1. Select users
Private and group chats belong to the participants, not to a team. They are therefore captured per user, as a protection unit of their own next to mailbox and OneDrive.
2. Capture on a schedule
Every run keeps the complete history as its own point in time. Unchanged conversations cost no additional storage, because identical content is stored only once.
3. Hand out the history
The history is written out as a readable file with sender, timestamp and the shared files, without writing anything back into the tenant.
What matters here
Six points that make the difference when it counts.
Private and group chats
Not just the channels of a team, but the conversations between two people and in groups. That is where most agreements live.
Shared files with the history
A message carries its attachments as a reference only. That reference is resolved during the backup, so the file is still there later even if the original was deleted long ago.
Readable for people, not for tools
The output is a coherent history that a business unit, an auditor or legal counsel can open without additional software.
Available after departure
Captured points in time remain available for the retention period set, even once the account and the Microsoft licence are gone.
Separate from Microsoft
The backup lives outside the Microsoft environment, encrypted with a key of its own per tenant, in German data centres.
Access stays controlled
Chat histories are particularly sensitive. Roles govern who may hand them out, and every action is logged. For a restore back into Microsoft, a four-eyes approval can be required on top.
Built-in means and a backup of your own
What Microsoft 365 alone leaves behind, and what is added.
With Conbool | Microsoft 365 alone | |
|---|---|---|
| Recover a chat history after the deletion windows expire | yes | no |
| Read the history of a user who has left | yes | only while account and retention remain |
| Hand out the history as a readable file | yes | only through Purview on a suitable plan |
| Shared files alongside the history | yes | to be located separately in OneDrive |
| Stored outside the Microsoft environment | yes | no |
Statements about Microsoft 365 follow the publicly documented windows for deleted Teams messages and the documented retention features. The plan and the settings of the respective tenant apply.
Frequently asked questions
Are private chats really captured, or only the channels?
What happens to the chat of someone who has left?
Which permission does this require in Microsoft 365?
Can a chat be written back into Teams?
May an employer capture chat histories at all?
Are shared files part of the history?
Related solutions
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Kanäle, Dateien und Dokumentbibliotheken wiederherstellbar halten.
Microsoft Planner Backup
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Entra ID Backup
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Backup oder Archivierung
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GoBD-konforme Archivierung
Die gesetzliche Aufbewahrung, die ein Backup nicht erfüllt.
See a chat history from your own tenant
We connect a test tenant, capture a chat and hand out the history together with you.