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

Service

Microsoft Purview

Last Updated

Apr 2, 2025

Published Feb 7, 2025

Tag

Updated message
New feature
Admin impact

Platforms

Web

Summary

Microsoft Purview will soon allow admins to apply retention policies based on the "last accessed" date for OneDrive and SharePoint files. Public preview starts mid-September 2025, with general availability in mid-October 2025. This feature will help delete obsolete data and improve Microsoft 365 Copilot responses. No admin action is required before rollout.

More information

Updated April 2, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Purview | Data Lifecycle Management: Admins will be able to apply a retention policy or retention label in Microsoft OneDrive and Microsoft SharePoint for files that have not been accessed by anyone in your organization for a specified period of time. This message applies to retention for Microsoft 365 file types. We will support other file types (non-Microsoft 365) in a future rollout.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 472030.

When this will happen:

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-September 2025 and expect to complete by late September 2025

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-October 2025 and expect to complete by late October 2025.

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:

admin controls

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.