Using Microsoft 365, keep in mind that there are might be retention polices applied to resources you are working with. Retention policies can preserve content from being deleted, and at the same time retention policies can automatically delete expired content. Retention policies can be applied to your email messages, teams chats and channel posts, and to files stored on your OneDrive and SharePoint sites. This article should help you better understand documents lifecycle and anwer questions like – “How to restore deleted content”, “What if I restore content – would it be deleted again?” and “How do I protect my old content from being deleted”.
Retention policies applied to SharePoint sites
Retention policies are created at the Purview (Complaince) Admin Center of the Microsoft 365. Policies are applied to sites (as containers) but effective against files (documents). I.e. it is not a site but a document in the site that should be preserved or deleted, based on some criterias. But criterias configured at the Purview center if applied to specific site – are the same for all site documents. Different sites might have differnt retention polycies applied.
Sad news – as a regular SharePoint user, you cannot see what policies are applied to your site and what document will expire when. But, usually, retention policies are published at the corporate portal. So just try to search for “retention” before reaching to IT. Obviously, differnt types of documents might have different requirements to retention – by law, regulations etc. So as a site owner you might be able to request specific retention settints to your site, depending on type of documents stored in SharePoint.
How to restore deleted content
The SharePoint Recycle Bin acts as a safety net for deleted items, allowing users to recover files or folders that were deleted (accidentally or by purpose, by user or by policy). Deleted items reside in the Site Recycle Bin for a default period of 93 days.
If you are working with documents from Teams application – you’d need to open channel documents in SharePoint.
If you are working with documents from SharePoint site – “Recycle bin” option should be on the left menu (for teams sites). Or you can navigate to “Site contents” and at the top right you’ll see “Recycle bin”. This is where you can see your deleted document and restore them.
What if I restore content – would it be deleted again?
Yes, if you just click “restore” – expect document will be deleted again. Retention policies usually are based on “Modified” property (date when the document was last modified ). But after you restore document from the recycle bin – “Modified” property is preserved. So to ensure your document will not be deleted – just open it, make some minor modifications and save again. Last modified property should be updated and you are good for another e.g. 5 years.
How do I protect my old content from being deleted
It is similar to previous topic. Document last modified date is what retention policies usually rely on to determine when to delete the doc. So just ensure the document “Modifed” propert is relatively recent. The probelem might be if you have more than one document library and/or tons of files in your document library distributed through folders and subfolders etc. How do I get report on files/documents that are going to be expaired soon? See the next topic.
How do i see what content is going to be deleted
The answer is simple: use search. Wherever you are now – you should be able to see a search bar at the top of your SharePoint site. This search bar is context-oriented, i.e. if you are working with a documents in a folder – you’ll search through this folder and below. To search through the documents library – navigate to the top of the library. To search through the all document libraries of the site – navigate to the site home page.
What to search? Usually we search for a content (keywords) we know document we a looking for contains. But in this case we are not looking for a specific content, we are looking for all documents that were modified e.g. 3 years ago or earlier. This is where SharePoint Keyword Query Language (KQL) helps. Surely you know that any SharePoint document has properties – default ones – like document Title, Description, Author (who created document), Created – date when document was created – and you can create custom ones – e.g. library columns. But did you know that these properties can be used to refine your search.
E.g. if you are searching for the “ProjectA”, you can refine you serch query with something like Author:John if you know that document you a looking for was created or updated by John. See KQL documentation here.
The same way we can use such document properties as Created Date and Modified Date. Let say if today is June 19 2025 and you are looking for documents that will hit 5 years in a month, the search query would be: “LastModifiedTime<2020-07-19” or “LastModifiedTime<2020-07-19 Author:John”. Can be uset at any SharePoint site or your OneDrive.
Alternalively, you can search from SharePoint landing page or from Microsoft 365 home page and select last modified date via graphical user interface:
