How to Archive Teams Chats

Microsoft Teams is a powerful platform for workplace communication, but Teams content can be difficult to manage. Archiving chat data is essential for maintaining compliance, recordkeeping, and reducing clutter. However, Teams does not offer a native archive chat function, which leads many businesses to explore more robust solutions, such as Intermedia’s Teams Archiving.

What Does It Mean to Archive a Teams Chat?

Archiving refers to preserving chat history outside the active workspace without deleting it. If you no longer use a Teams channel because of restructuring or a project is finished, archiving the channel stores it, along with its chats and information, for future reference.

For regulated industries, such as healthcare and finance, archiving Team chats is essential for compliance, open data, and eDiscovery requests. The process can involve the following:

Exporting data
Saving messages
Capturing content, metadata, and changes to shared files
Using purpose-built solutions that capture conversations in real time

One such solution is Intermedia’s Teams Archiving. This cloud-based solution automatically and securely captures all messages, one-on-one chats, group conversations, and shared files. We use state-of-the-art encryption and multifactor authentication to ensure your data stays protected and restricted from unauthorized users.

Archiving vs. Deleting Chats: Key Differences

Both archiving and deleting chats remove them from the active workspace. While archiving messages preserves them for compliance, audits, and long-term access, deleting permanently removes them. Archived items are stored in a separate folder or system, making them easy to retrieve if you need them. Deleting chats removes the data and stores it in a temporary location before they are permanently purged, which makes it difficult or impossible to recover the information.

Deleting is a great option if you no longer need a chat or its contents. Archiving is the way to go if you need to worry about compliance or may need the information in the future. If you’re unsure if you may need to access the chat, archiving is the safer route, especially for businesses.

With Intermedia’s archiving solution, there is no risk of accidental deletion. Our cloud archive helps you streamline and organize your workspace without disrupting your records.

Benefits of Archiving Teams Chats

Archiving Microsoft Teams chats enables you to access the information later. However, the benefits for businesses don’t stop there. Archiving chats also has the following positive impacts on organizations:

Data security: Archiving content protects sensitive information from accidental deletion or access without the proper permissions. Additionally, it creates backups of files, chat conversations, and other content.
Organizational efficiency: When you archive content, you remove it from your active workflow. This function keeps the Teams interface clean and organized, which can foster productivity and improve collaboration.
Retention policies: If you work in a regulated industry, you must store information for a specified period. Archiving enables you to implement retention policies and controls to ensure data is retained according to internal policies and regulations.
Searchability: Archiving helps teams maintain a centralized database of past chats and content, making it easy to search and find information when needed. Intermedia’s fast and intuitive search interface makes the process even easier.

Furthermore, many industries are subject to various legal requirements and regulations regarding data protection and privacy, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Archiving content helps you remain compliant by having a documented record of files and conversations.

How to Archive Teams Chats: Practical Options

Microsoft Teams does not have a native archive function, which can make it challenging for team members to archive their content. If you use the Teams app, this lack of functionality leaves you with three practical methods of archiving your chats.

Microsoft 365 Compliance Center

Using Microsoft 365 Compliance Center, administrators can use eDiscovery tools to place content on hold and export chats. While this is a powerful tool, this method can be complex and is not ideal for large organizations.

If you opt for this method, you can access archived chats by downloading them from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal. Intermedia offers a Microsoft 365 Backup product that uses cloud-based technology to protect against ransomware and malware attacks, user errors, and accidental deletion from Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive.

Saving Individual Messages in Teams

While MS Teams does not have a seamless “archive” button, it does have a save feature. End users on a group chat can manually “save” messages on their dashboard. However, this feature only stores the information locally. It doesn’t offer long-term retention, save entire Teams data, or keep information visible to other users in your organization.

To view locally saved messages, you open your Teams profile and click on the “Saved” tab. This tab will show content, documents, and chats you saved.

Use a Dedicated Archiving Solution Like Intermedia

For companies that need to maintain chat records and Teams activity for HR, legal, or compliance purposes, a dedicated archiving solution, such as Intermedia’s Teams archiving, may be an ideal option. Our cloud-based archiving system automatically captures all conversation history, PST files, and links without user intervention.

It stores all the data in a centralized archive, visible to everyone in your company. Our interface makes it quick and easy to access archived conversations by using a searchable portal with robust filtering and audit logs.

Best Practices for Chat Archiving

When it comes to archiving chats, proper training and implementation are key to ensure you comply with regulations. After deciding which archiving method is right for your organization, you must create and distribute company-wide guidelines on retention and archiving. You need to determine how long information needs to be kept and train your employees on when to save chats and when to archive them.

Additionally, you need to automate these processes whenever possible. Intermedia’s built-in retention policies reduce manual work and support defensible data retention, allowing your team to focus on their work, so you can stay productive and meet deadlines.

Manage Your Microsoft Teams Data with Intermedia

Microsoft Teams archiving is critical for compliance, clarity, and control. However, native options are limited, so Teams administrators turn to third-party tools for a smarter, automated, and more secure way to manage Teams data.

Intermedia offers cloud technologies to make it easy for our customers to collaborate, communicate, and share information. Our AI-powered platform helps businesses connect better with a seamlessly integrated portfolio of intelligent communications and collaboration solutions. Learn how our cloud-based archiving solutions can help your organization automatically capture, store, and retrieve Teams chats easily and confidently by contacting us today.