How to export an entire Teams chat history with an individual from a Office 365 work account

Anonymous
2022-08-11T21:40:08+00:00

Hello, I'm hoping to get some information on how to go about exporting Teams chat history from my work Office 365 / Microsoft account.

From what I have found online, it seems that this functionality is available through a web interface, and not available in any form in the desktop app. I am in need of this functionality because the search functionality of Teams leaves much to be desired: if I'm searching for messages to/from a user regarding a particular keyword of interest, Teams may return a single message from over a year ago containing that keyword, but there is no ability to view surrounding context messages nor is there an ability to jump directly to that message in our conversation. I just can't keep justifying scrolling back through months or years of individual conversations to find pertinent messages so I can do my job effectively, so I'm planning on exporting my chat conversations with certain individuals so that I can properly search through them for prior messages.

I've found the following support guide which details steps to follow for exporting Teams data in this manner: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-or-delete-your-teams-data-1ed6ac68-5fb4-41be-9861-1a4127fecf68

The following is the section relevant to downloading Microsoft Teams chat conversations:

Export and Delete Your Messages and Media from Chats and Communities

To export your messages and media from chat and community:

  1. Sign in to the Export page with your Microsoft Account.
  2. Select the option to download your Chat history, Media, or both, and then select Submit request. Select Continue when prompted.
  3. You will need to check back periodically to the export page on the status of your export, which you can see at the top of the page under Available Exports. A link to download your files will also appear there when they are available to download.
  4. Select the Download button to download your files.

However, I seem to be running into an issue in regards to the type of account I'm using. I am unable to login with my work account at the provided "export page" link: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2128346

When I attempt to login I receive a message indicating "That Microsoft account doesn't exist. Enter a different account or get a new one."

I am able to login with my work account in-browser at the following address: https://www.office.com/

And from there I can access the Teams web app (whose address is: https://teams.microsoft.com/)

I did attempt to access my account settings from the Teams web app (via Settings > Accounts > Manage) https://myaccount.microsoft.com/https://myaccount.microsoft.com/settingsandprivacy/privacy However, there are no Teams chat export options visible under the privacy settings.

The only data I am able to export is "Microsoft Search History" which includes:

  • Outlook — Your Outlook search history includes your searches in Outlook, Outlook for mobile, and Outlook on the web.
  • SharePoint and Office.com — Your searches in SharePoint Online and Office.com are combined into one history.

Is there any way I can access this export functionality through my work account? Is this something that has to be enabled at a higher admin level by my work's IT department? Or is this something I would need to reach out to them to export for me?

Until Teams' chat functionality allows for jumping directly to a found message in a chat's complete history (with all surrounding messages prior and after being visible) this is the only solution I can think of to effectively search through years of continuous conversations for pertinent information.

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Chats | Other

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  1. Didi 15,515 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2022-08-11T23:08:40+00:00

    Hi Mitchell,

    My name is Didi. I'm happy to help you today.

    At this time there is no direct way to export the chat history in 'Teams for work/school' as an end user compared with 'Teams personal'.

    It will require admin access or by using Teams Export APIs.

    However, I did find a way to view the entire chat history. You may take a look at the screenshot for the succeeding steps after first typing the name of the person in the search box.

    The chat history will populate when you click on 'Conversation with'.

    Let me know if you've tried this already.

    Best regards,

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  2. btbt 11,841 Reputation points
    2022-08-12T00:13:56+00:00

    In a business setting, you as an end user cannot export your Teams history. Only an administrator that can perform eDiscovery can do that kind of export.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-25T19:50:21+00:00

    As one of the O365 admins for my office, is there anywhere I can go to find instructions for doing this eDiscovery?
    I've tried one method (Compliance > Content search) but I only get the text of chats exported; no images are included...

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-23T13:45:10+00:00

    Hi,
    I have the same question as you Colin McCroskey, finally did you solve it?

    Thanks in advanced

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-11-23T20:21:12+00:00

    I only got as far as doing a "Content Search":

    In the Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Compliance > Content Search > create a search for an employee's "instant messages".

    It takes a while, then I have to export the results as a .PST file, then download that .PST file.
    It still does not get all embedded images from the messages though.

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