Delete Private Chat threads
This request is for the ability to completely delete a private chat thread. (Not hide/archive.)
Again, this was pulled out into its own topic because it is still under review and no decision has been made.
To recap what has already been completed from the other topic:
1. Delete your own messages anywhere in Teams.
2. Team Owners can choose if users can edit/delete in their tenant as well as choose if admins have the power to delete any message posted in public channels.
3. The ability to hide your private chat threads (these are not the chat threads in channels, but the private chat threads that appear when you click the Chat icon on the left-side app bar).
4. The ability to mute your private chat threads. (these are not the chat threads in channels, but the private chat threads that appear when you click the Chat icon on the left-side app bar).
This topic deserves consideration and separating out hot items is something we have often done. Please don't think of this as an attempt to diminish the ask, we know that many people want this.
Thank you for your understanding and feedback.
-Warren
Warren
shared this idea
Hey everyone! We have this already. Just click the ellipses next to the thread name and select “Hide”.
Note that we cannot provide a “hard delete” due to eDiscovery and other legal reasons.
Thanks,
Suphatra
212 comments
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Anonymous
commented
We really need a delete option. Hiding is not a solution, because it brings back the original conversation which may be irrelevant to the new one and is cluttered, confusing.
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Anonymous
commented
We have no legal requirement to keep our chats, as previously stated by another company- we used skype for office casual chat (especially useful when companies have open planned offices), anything we needed to retain we would use emails for, please create a hard delete.
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Tiffany
commented
I see you are not able to delete a chat thread within a group chat. Will this be enabled?
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Aaron
commented
So are you guys just never going to implement this? My whole company got forced over to Teams from Business Skype today - we used it exclusively for inter-office chat. Clicked the person or persons we needed to say something to, a couple back and forth messages. Closed the window, the end. It got archived to chats in Outlook if you have it set to do so. (We don't as we are a financial company and purposely do not retain records where client information is sent back and forth between departments)
Not ALL conversations are business related. Sometimes it's just nonsense, or jokes between coworkers. These don't need to be stored for all time, either.
It was simple and clean. There was NO need for this, you're solving a problem that didn't exist before.
Now everyone here is just emailing back and forth because none of us want to use it - 'hiding' it is not deleting, and your statement that you "cannot provide a "hard delete" delete due to eDiscovery and other legal reasons" is an outright lie. There is no legal obligation for any company to retain chat logs. They CAN, sure - and many do, probably - but it's not at ALL a legal requirement. With that logic, all things would be recorded and stored. Every phone call to your spouse, every email to RSVP to Uncle Bob's pool party, every discussion at the water cooler, these things don't need to be archived.
Either match the functionality of Skype or let us go back to it.
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Leslie
commented
The Hide option only works until you have to chat with that same person again. For someone who uses this a lot, makes for a very busy screen. I don't like looking at the busy screen to determine where I left off or what I have or have not replied to.
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Vimal
commented
Absolutely agree with Eric.
If the admin want to store the chat on a remote server for legal reasons - I can understand that. But, I should be in a position to control what I see in my apps experience. From an end user perspective - given the time teams takes to load the previous chat messages - keeping such a long history is useless anyways.
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Eric
commented
I really think this should be available. eDiscovery should keep you from destroying it, that doesn't mean I shouldn't have the ability to completely remove it from my experience.
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Anonymous
commented
The ability to hard delete of private conversation should be a basic feature. I can't see a reason to NOT implement this functionality. I understand chat in a part of a Team should be at the discretion of the Team owner but private chats ....... why not be able to delete?
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mak1179
commented
This is the most basic of features. Allow the hard delete of private conversation. Simple. The functionality associated with team leader controlling this ability in a channel makes sense. Locking this out for private conversation does not. This will ensure people don't use the product.
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Balaji Narni
commented
At least need to remove from activity related to deleted messages in private chat.
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Craig Bedigian
commented
Hi - Any update on this?
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John Pell
commented
@Suphatra, that's not helpful. Please familiarize yourself with the eDiscovery feature of Office 365 before claiming it blocks this feature. Exchange Online supports eDiscovery and it would be laughable to claim that means that email can't be deleted from a user's inbox.
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Dave Tremblay
commented
The feature to prevent showing all the chat history would be very useful since it can show sensitive data in from of people while meetings. Like poking someone on Teams during a meeting to have a quick answer will reveal the chat history in front of everyone. We should have a button to show it on demand if it is needed.
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Bob Rooney
commented
I'd never use this product unless this was an option and if my company implemented it, I still wouldn't use it.
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Paul
commented
Please have a look at this alternative feature request that looks at this slightly differently
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Paul
commented
The reasons given for not enabling this feature are poor at best. Having a legal requirement to retain historic content does not mean the thread content should be displayed forever. If I create a new discussion with the same user(s) the historic content and discussion reappears - the thread is no longer hidden so the statement 'we have this already' is false - or is a bug as it does not work.
The ability to archive/hide mark the thread content as hidden and then if needed review hidden content should be enabled. -
Anonymous
commented
Add the function to delete private threads. I cant believe this is even a question, and i'm saying this from a business owner perspective. Please make this happen.
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Anonymous
commented
It's always been so difficult to understand how a company like Microsoft, that likely has more geniuses than any other company, can continue to make poor design decisions year after year since 1975. Teams is a fairly useful application, but it's shortcomings, such as the lack of the ability to delete messages, renders it useless. Another reason for people to continue to use email as a "messaging" app.
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Charlie
commented
We need the option to delete private chats same as Skype Business had the same functionality. We currently can't fully migrate to Teams because of that limitation.
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Kurt
commented
My company implemented Teams and is forcing us out of Skype. It is universally hated because of the Chat issues. We work in common areas and it can be quite difficult when the chat screens just show up when I start my laptop. Please move this history off to Outlook as it was in Skype.