MC999442 - Microsoft Purview | Data Lifecycle Management: Retention based on “last accessed” for OneDrive and SharePoint files

Updated September 23, 2026: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Enable admins to apply retention policy or retention label in OneDrive and SharePoint for files that have not been accessed by anyone in the organization after a period of time. In this release, users will be able to set up delete policies based on Last Accessed Date of Office file types. Non-office file types are not supported in this release.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 472030.

When this will happen:

Preview: We will begin rolling out late November 2026 (previously end of October) and expect to complete by end of December 2026 (previously end of November)

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early January 2027 (previously end of December 2026) and expect to complete by early February 2027 (previously end of January)

How this will affect your organization:

This feature will help delete obsolete data, which will improve the quality and relevance of Microsoft 365 Copilot responses.

This feature will be available by default.

After the rollout, admins can use the retention control When items were last accessed when configuring labels and policies.

Retention settings page in Purview with the new “last accessed” option for retention policies:

What you need to do to prepare:

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Before rollout, we will update this post with new documentation.