Microsoft to Retire Legacy SharePoint Compliance Features
Organizations must prepare now for SharePoint Online’s compliance feature retirement.
Key Takeaways:
- Microsoft will retire legacy SharePoint Online compliance features in April 2026.
- Organizations must migrate to Purview Data Lifecycle and Records Management.
- Retired features will no longer function, requiring proactive transition planning.
Microsoft will soon discontinue support for several legacy compliance-related features in SharePoint Online. According to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, these outdated tools will be deprecated in favour of Purview Data Lifecycle management and Records management.
Starting in April 2026, Microsoft will retire features to streamline compliance and data lifecycle management for SharePoint Online customers. These include Information Management Policies, In-Place Records Management, Document deletion policies (deletion only), and Policies for site closure and deletion (deletion only).
Once retired, these legacy features will no longer be available or functional. They may disappear from both the user interface and programmatic access, and the underlying backend support may stop functioning.
How should organizations prepare for the transition?
Microsoft urges organizations to migrate to Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management and Purview Records Management solutions, which offer modernized and flexible compliance capabilities. The company will not perform automatic migrations from the retired features, and businesses must proactively transition to Purview ahead of the April 2026 retirement deadline.
It’s advised to assess current usage of legacy features, evaluate compliance goals, plan the migration timeline, and check licensing requirements. Administrators should review retention schedules for redundancies, implement new Purview-based configurations, test functionality (e.g., via Policy Lookup tools), and notify relevant teams. Microsoft has provided detailed migration strategies and feature mapping documentation to support organizations in their transition.
Microsoft’s decision to retire legacy SharePoint compliance features is a strategic move to streamline support and deliver more advanced capabilities. While this transition offers tenants enhanced functionality, it also introduces licensing considerations for commercial customers. For instance, manual retention requires at least Microsoft 365 Business Premium, and advanced features like automatic retention and records management are reserved for Microsoft 365/Office 365 E5 subscriptions.
Rabia has a master's degree in Software Engineering and she has years of experience writing professionally about Microsoft products and other technologies. Rabia has also written for OnMSFT.com as well as Windows Report. She is always up to date on t...
