M365 Changelog: (Updated) Microsoft Teams: View, download, and delete Microsoft OneDrive for Business transcript files – Jan 13, 2025

MC726122 – Updated January 13, 2025: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience

Microsoft is beginning the process to standardize all transcript storage to OneDrive, starting with the storage of transcripts for meetings that only have transcription enabled. Previously, meetings with only transcription enabled saved the transcript file to the meeting organizer’s Exchange Online, while meetings with both recording and transcription enabled saved two transcript copies—one that is coupled with the recording saved to OneDrive and another transcript copy saved to the meeting organizer’s Exchange Online. 

Now with this feature, meetings that have only transcription enabled will also save two copies (one in OneDrive and one in Exchange Online), but all meeting transcript entry points in Teams app will point to the OneDrive copy only, no entry points for meeting transcripts will source from the Exchange Online copy. At the same time, meeting transcripts will stop saving in Exchange Online altogether and all transcript storage will be standardized on OneDrive only. 

The rollout of this feature also improves both the experience of meeting organizers to manually delete the transcript, as well as the ability for IT administrators to apply retention policies to the transcripts from meetings that only had transcription enabled. 

A summary of the deletion experience for meeting transcripts is captured in the following table: 

User	Type of transcript deletion	Previous experience	New Experience with this feature rollout
Meeting organizer/co-organizer	Manually from Teams app	Only deleted Exchange Online transcript file	Deletes both copies of the transcript file from OneDrive and Exchange Online
Meeting organizer/co-organizer	Manually from Stream	Only deletes the transcript file stored in OneDrive	Only deletes the transcript file stored in OneDrive
IT Administrator	Retention policies in Teams Admin Center	Only available for copies saved in OneDrive, so only applicable to meetings with recording turned on.	Now the retention policy is also applicable to meetings with only transcription enabled and to the transcript file saved in OneDrive.To bulk delete transcript files saved in Exchange Online—please refer to this documentation

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 365720

When this will happen:

Targeted release: Microsoft will begin rolling out early June 2024 (previously mid-May) and expects to complete by mid-June 2024 (previously late May).

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): Microsoft will begin rolling out mid-June 2024 (previously late May) and expects to complete by late August 2024 (previously mid-August).

GCC High: Microsoft will begin rolling out late August 2024 and expects to complete by mid-September 2024.

DoD: Microsoft will begin rolling out late September 2024 and expects to complete by late January 2025 (previously late December) 

How this will affect your organization:

There is no change to the end user experience for viewing and downloading Teams meeting transcripts. The only change for meeting organizers and co-organizers is for any meetings that are held after this feature rolls out, they can delete all copies of the meeting transcript directly from the Teams app, instead of having to manually delete all copies of the transcript from two places (Teams app and Stream). For IT administrators, they can start applying retention policies for the copy of the transcript saved in OneDrive, including scenarios where a meeting only had transcription enabled. This retention policy won’t affect the copies saved in Exchange Online, to bulk delete transcript files saved in Exchange Online—please refer to this documentation

What you need to do to prepare:

There is no action needed to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Additional information