There are two kinds of native Microsoft 365 Teams backup capabilities. The first in the standard built-in retention & recovery features available in all M365 subscriptions. The second is the Compliance Center retention features only available in senior E3/E5 Microsoft 365 plans.
You can read more about both kinds of native M365 data backup/recovery features in another blog post here.
Standard Built-in Teams Retention & Recovery
The built-in Microsoft 365 recovery helps recover the portion of Teams data stored on team SharePoint sites (Teams Wiki, Files and OneNote) as well as the data stored in team shared Exchange mailbox (emails sent to Teams mailbox and Teams calendar).
The key limitations of the standard recovery are:
- the data retention period is limited to 93 (or less) days;
- Team messages aren't protected by the built-in mechanism.
All items (file attachments and team web pages) deleted from Teams SharePoint sites and users OneDrives go into Recycle Bin, where they stay 93 days before they're permanently deleted. If a user empties their Recycle Bin before 93 days pass, then the data goes to Second Stage Recycle Bin (where stays for the remainder of the 93 days period).
The standard retention period for deleted SharePoint and OneDrive data is 30-93 days; it can't be changed
Deleted Exchange online data (emails and calendars) follow a similar path. Deleted items are initially moved to the first stage recycle bin (where they can be recovered by users) and then to the second stage recycle bin (recoverable by admins).
The total recovery window for deleted Exchange online items is at most 60 days (deleted items are stored for 30 days in the first recycle bin, plus 30 days in the second recycle bin).
Compliance Center Retention Policies
The second kind of native Microsoft 365 data protection capabilities is the compliance retention, available only in premium (more expensive) E3-E5 M365 subscriptions. You can use the compliance retention to implement Microsoft Teams backup strategy and keep deleted/modified Teams data indefinetely.
If you want to know more about the compliance retention and its cost, check the article we already mentioned earlier.
In short, to use the retention policies as Teams backup you'll need to configure two policies (a single retention policy cannot retain Teams and any other data type at the same time). Here are the steps:
- Go to compliance.microsoft.com
- Create one policy for Teams chats and channels. This policy will retain messages (only) from:
- one-to-one team chats
- public & private team channels
Enable retention for chats and channel messages and select Teams/users to include in the policy
- Create another (2nd) policy to retain:
- Team users' OneDrive data (files from 1-1 Teams chats are stored there)
- Team users' mailboxes (contain emails sent to the Teams email address and the Teams calendar)
- Team SharePoint sites (one site per team, plus additional sites - one for every private channel in the team)
Strength and limitations of the native Teams data protection
The main disadvantages of the standard (available in all plans) M365 recovery tools is obviously the short 60-90 days recovery window and the incomplete retention (no messages). At the same time, the standard recovery enables high-fidelity data recovery to the same place it was deleted from.
The compliance retention policies help address both disadvantages - they extend the recovery window (indefinetely) and retain all Teams messages. However, there is no mechanism to restore the data back to M365 (it has to be downloaded and imported manually) which is often a showstopper for larger organizations.
(ADD SUMMARY TABLE FOR NATIVE RECOVERY)
The retained data consumes your Office 365 storage quota and it can be a significant constraint. Because Office keeps the full versions of all
The “premium” retention policies are available in E3-E5 Office 365 plans. If you are on a cheaper plan, you will only have access to the “short-term” retention policies that do not cover Teams conversations and messages.
Compliance Retention & O365 Storage
The retained data consumes your Office 365 storage quota and it can be a significant constraint. Because Office keeps the full versions of all deleted and modified data (no “incremental” backups or deduplication is provided), Office 365 storage limits can be reached fast. Users report than within 2-3 months after the retention policies are enabled for SharePoint sites / OneDrives, the retained data takes up more than 80% of the total drive’s storage.
Sharepoint storage quota. Regardless of your Office 365 pricing plan, each SharePoint site includes 1TB storage quota in addition to 10GB per user. Therefore, your domain-wide total SharePoint quota equals to the number of SharePoint sites x 1TB, plus the number of users x 10GB.
OneDrive for Business storage quota. Each OneDrive includes 1TB storage quota in Business/E1 plans, and 5TB in E3/E5 plans.
Exchange Online storage quota. Each Exchange online mailbox includes 100GB storage quota regardless of the pricing plan.
Limitations of Compliance Retention
In addition to their heavy impact on storage consumption, “premium” Microsoft Retention Policies are limited in their ability to capture Teams data.
The policies do not backup Teams Planner (Tasks), OneNote or Forms data. Teams Wiki are backed up (retained) as a web page file, but cannot be opened offline or uploaded back to Office 365.