Top Secret Places to Find Hidden Microsoft Teams Data Storage

An Admin, the name itself reveals that we are having access to all data in our organization. But, we still face some challenges while accessing the data, especially Teams. We don’t know the exact place to find the Microsoft Teams data storage locations, especially when responding to compliance or auditing requests.

Unlike traditional collaboration platforms, Microsoft Teams stores different types of data across multiple Microsoft 365 services. As Teams data is distributed across various services, finding a specific chat, file, meeting recording, or other content can be challenging if you don’t know where it’s stored.

In this blog, we’ll explore where Microsoft Teams stores different types of data and how to access them from the following Microsoft 365 services:

• Exchange Online
• Microsoft Stream
• OneDrive for Business
• SharePoint Online

We thought Teams is going to replace the emails, but surprisingly all copy of the chat conversations are automatically stored in the Exchange mailbox for compliance support for Microsoft Teams! To hide the data from our eyes and avoid the surprise, Microsoft stores the conversation under a hidden folder named ‘Team chat’.

When chats are between two persons, we need to secure the storage like the chat. Since it is one-to-one chat, it is stored in individual user mailboxes of both the persons for the secured storage.

How to find the One-to-One conversation?

You can discover the chat data either by “Content Search” or “E-discovery” in Purview admin center. The detailed steps is discussed in a later section of this blog.

In an organization, users use the channel to have a conversation with a group of users. Teams create a Group mailbox for every Team, and it stores all the channel conversation under a hidden folder named “Top of Information Store/ Conversation history/ Team Chat”.

How to find the channel conversation?

The ‘content search’ helps us find all the channel data, but we should add the group mailbox in search location. We can’t get the individual channel data separately.

Teams have a new update named Private Channel. You can easily manage a private channel but retrieving those chats is the most important thing. Although it is a group chat, it has some added privacy among other group chats. So, it stores its data in the user mailbox of members.

How to find the private channel conversation?

Retrieval of this chat is done by ‘content search’. The result encompasses private channel chat, one-to-one chat etc. We can identify the private channel chat through the “To” address in the message preview. The “Team mail address” designates the “To” address.

In Teams, the caller can send a voicemail message to that person if their call goes unanswered. This voice mail is delivered to user via email. So, the receiver’s user mailbox stores it as an audio file.

How to find the voicemails sent in Teams?

By adding a condition named “message kind” as “Voicemail” while searching in the content search, we can get the data.

Even though Teams facilitate our meeting experience with its new features, as an admin, we should keep an eye on the recorded meetings. Because it is our responsibility to monitor and control what is going on in our organization. Streams separately store the meeting recordings along with the channel name.

How to find the recorded team meetings?

The Team recordings are displayed to the Office 365 users based on the privacy of the specific Team.

For Public and Org-wide Teams:
All the Office 365 users in the organization can access the recorded meetings in these types of Teams. The User who started the recording of the meeting can access it in two locations namely “My content–>Meetings” and “Discover–>videos”. Meanwhile, all other users can access the recordings through “Discover–>Videos”.

For Private Teams:

• Firstly, the meetings recorded in the private teams will be visible only to the group members. They can access the recordings in “Discover–>Videos”.
• Moreover, admins must be either a global admin or Microsoft Stream admin to access the meeting recordings in private teams. Admins can see all the meeting videos by simply switching to Admin Mode in the Microsoft Stream portal.

Microsoft has transitioned Teams meeting recordings from Stream (classic) to OneDrive and SharePoint Online to enhance integration and permission management.

Each Microsoft 365 user gets a dedicated OneDrive for Business account to store their personal work files, including files shared through Microsoft Teams.

Files shared in one-to-one and group chats in Microsoft Teams are stored in the sender’s OneDrive.

How to find the files shared by a specific user?

• OneDrive stores the files shared by the user under a folder named “Microsoft Teams chat files”.
• OneDrive provides another folder named “Teams Wiki Data” for accessing files shared in any page inside the “wiki” tab.

Permissions for Shared File

• First, the sender will have the original file while the receiver will only able to see the shared file.
• Additionally, the full permissions will be given to the sender whereas the receiver can only share the file.

Teams meeting and event recordings are primarily stored in OneDrive for Business, where organizers and recorders can access and manage them.

How to find meeting and event recordings?

Meeting recordings are typically stored in the “Recordings” folder of OneDrive for Business. This includes scheduled meetings, instant meetings, webinars, and events.

For 1:1 calls, group calls, and channel meetings, recordings are stored in the OneDrive of the user who starts the recording. Scheduled meeting and event recordings are saved in the meeting organizer’s OneDrive, even if the organizer doesn’t attend the meeting.

If a delegate schedules the meeting on behalf of the organizer, the recording is still stored in the organizer’s OneDrive. The delegate also receives full management permissions for the recording.

What if the organizer doesn’t have OneDrive?

• The recording is stored in the first available location in the following order: Co-organizer’s OneDrive, recorder’s OneDrive, Microsoft temporary storage (if neither has OneDrive).
• Recordings kept in temporary storage must be downloaded within 21 days, or they’ll be permanently deleted.

Recording Permissions

• For channel meeting, recording permissions are inherited from the channel’s owners and members.
• For non-channel meetings:
  • Internal participants automatically receive access to the recording.
  • External participants must be granted access by the organizer.
  • Some attendees in large meetings may need to request access from the recording owner.

Every Microsoft Team has a dedicated SharePoint Online site, known as a Teams-connected site, for storing files and meeting recordings.

Since it is a group chat, files need to be accessed by all the members. Therefore, it stores in a Site Collection in SharePoint, which is the shared point for all the team members.

How to find the files shared in a channel?

The files can be accessed under “documents” which is available both in the left pane and the right side of the page.

• Initially, a new Site Collection is created in the SharePoint for every Team created. All the channel data within the Team are available in the corresponding site collection.
• Furthermore, a dedicated folder is created along with the channel name within the site collection for every channel created in Teams under the ‘Documents’ folder.
• Finally, files shared in the channel are stored in the corresponding channel’s folder in the site collection.

Of course, a single site stores all the channel files available within a team. Additionally, to maintain its privacy, a separate site collection is created for private channels to store the files securely.

How to find the files shared in a private channel?

Access the files in the corresponding site and by the channel URL in SharePoint.

Teams channel meeting recordings are stored in SharePoint Online. Recording permissions and storage behavior are the same as those described for OneDrive for Business.

Where can you find the recordings?

• Navigate to the SharePoint site associated with the Team.
• Open Documents –> <ChannelName> –> Recordings.

Microsoft Purview provides two ways to help admins locate and export Microsoft Teams data.

1. Using Content Search
2. Using eDiscovery

Follow the steps below to search Teams chats and other Teams content using Content Search:

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Purview portal.
2. Navigate to Solutions –> e-Discovery –> Content Search.
3. Click Create a search, enter a descriptive name for the search, and select Create.
4. In the Query tab, make the following configurations:
   • Under Data sources, click Add sources and select the users whose Teams chats you want to search. Then, click Save and close.

     

   • In the Condition builder, click Add conditions, select Message kind, and set the message type to Microsoft teams. Optionally, add keywords to narrow the results further.

5. Then, click Run query. In the Choose search results flyout, make any changes if required, and then select Run query.

Wait a few minutes for the query to complete. Once finished, you can get the summary of the search results under the Statistics tab.

If you want to view the preview results later, you can export them and store them as an HTML file. To export Teams chat using eDiscovery, follow the steps below.

1. Go to the Content Search page and select the search you created.
2. Switch to the Statistics tab and click Export.
3. Provide a name for the export, make changes if required, and click Export again to start the process.
4. After a few minutes, you’ll see a notification to view the status of the export in the Process manager. You can click the link in the notification to get redirected to the Process manager tab. Otherwise, go to Statistics page and select Process manager.
5. Here, you can monitor the status of the export. Once the status is set to ‘Completed’, click on the export, select the files you need to download and click Download.

Moreover, E-discovery is another effective tool used to retrieve all the Microsoft Teams data. It might be challenging to use, but the hold feature can be an advantage for the admins. Explore the steps on how to use Microsoft Teams eDiscovery.

I hope this blog will help you to get your exact Microsoft Teams’ data easily among the Office 365 services without any further reference. Check it out and comment on your experience.