Expiration Policy for Microsoft 365 Group
As an administrator, you can set the expiration policy only for Office 365 groups in Azure Active Directory. Once you set a group to end, groups with user activities are automatically renewed as close expiration.
With the increased use of Microsoft 365 groups, administrators and users need a way to clean up unused groups. Expiration policies can help remove inactive groups from the system and clear the clutter created over time.
When a group ends, all its associated services (mailbox, planner, SharePoint site, team, etc.) are also deleted.
When a group is exhausted it is "soft-deleted" which means that it can still be recovered for up to 30 days.
Administrators can specify an expiration period and any idle group that reaches the end of that period, and it is not renewed, will be deleted. The term of expiration begins when the group is formed, or the date it was last renewed. Group owners will be automatically sent an email before expiration that allows them to renew the group for another expiration interval. Users of Teams will see constant notifications in Teams.
Actively used groups are automatically renewed. One of the following tasks will automatically renew the group:
SharePoint - View, edit, download, transfer, share or upload files.
Outlook - Join a group, read or write a group message from a group, and like a message (Outlook on the web).
Teams - visiting a Teams channel.
It is important to know that expiration is off by default. If you want to use it, administrators must enable it for their organization.
How to Set Expiration Policy
As noted above, the expiry is off by default. An administrator must enable the expiration policy and set the property for its effect. To enable it, go to Azure Active Directory (AAD)> Groups> End. Here you can set the lifetime of the default group and specify that you want the first and second expiration notifications to go to the owner of the group.
The lifetime of the group is specified in days and can be set to 180, 365 or the custom value you specify. The custom date must be at least 30 days.
If there is no owner in the group, the termination email will go to a designated administrator.
You can set the policy for all your groups, only for selected groups, or you can close it completely by making any selection. Note that currently, you may not have different policies for different groups.
Set Group Expiration
Open the Azure AD admin center with an account that is a global administrator in your Azure AD organization.
Select Groups, then select Expiration to open the expiration settings.
On the Expiration Page, You Can
- Set the group lifetime in days. You could select one of the preset values, or a custom value (should be 31 days or more).
- Specify an email address where the renewal and expiration notifications should be sent when a group has no owner.
- Select which Microsoft 365 groups expire. You can set an expiration for:
All Microsoft 365 groups
A list of Selected Microsoft 365 groups
None to restrict expiration for all groups
- Save your settings when you're done by selecting Save.
How Expiry Works with the Retention Policy
If you have a retention policy set up in the Security and Compliance Center for groups, then the termination policy basically works with the retention policy. When a group expires, the group's conversations in the mailbox and files in the group's site are maintained in the retention container for a specific number of days mentioned in the retention policy. However, users will not see the group or its contents after termination.
How and When a Group Owner Learns if Their Group is About to End
Group owners will only be notified via email. If the group was created through Planner, SharePoint, or any other application, termination notifications will always come via email. If the group was created through Teams, the group owner will receive a notification to renew through the Activity section in Teams. If the owner of your group does not have a valid email address, it is not recommended that you enable termination on a group.
Just 30 days before the group ends, the owner of the group (or the email addresses you specify for groups that do not have an owner) will receive an email from which you can easily renew the group. If you do not renew it, you will receive another renewal email 15 days before expiration. If you still do not renew it, you will receive another email notification the day before expiration.
If for any reason no owner or administrator renews the group before it expires, the administrator can restore the group even up to 30 days after termination.
