Show context around old Teams messages from search results

Anonymous
2020-09-29T18:45:59+00:00

Looking for help with a particular issue with searching for older messages inside of Teams.

When I search for a certain keyword - say, "hot dog" - I get results that are both old and recent from past conversations. If I look at the recent results I get the full message context that surrounds it - messages coming and going.

If I read older messages, however, I only get the single message result without any surrounding context. This is only marginally helpful, as the context is necessary to add, well, context to the conversation!

Has anyone figured out how to do this? Is it an admin side thing that needs to change?

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Chats | Search messages and conversations

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-03-09T02:48:49+00:00

    This is absurd. Skype for Business did a remarkable job saving conversations by the conversation (or when you close the conversation) as its own thread you can EASILY search and refer to in Outlook. Was that too accessible for the users? It makes no sense some of these design decisions happening at Microsoft. Did the people who designed this ever use a chat platform before? When there was better chat functionality in decades old programs like MSN/AIM Messenger, something is clearly wrong.

    It's bad enough Teams is a huge resource hog, has trouble viewing pictures in chat, arrow keys randomly stop working, cluttered chat conversations that can't be removed, requires consuming an entire screen just to be functional, and now the inability to bring up past conversations. Wonderful job Microsoft, keep up the great work.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-02-09T23:50:55+00:00

    If there’s more votes, then this may even be considered for implementation, maybe 🤞🏻

    SayvaiTosu - Don't hold your breath. IIRC Microsoft has blown off suggestions with a few thousand votes before...

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-02-09T13:14:35+00:00

    Thanks, this is the solution. Just entered the search term for a something said in a group chat months ago and it just scrolled the chat to the found message for me to see with all surrounding messages. Completely ridiculous this isn't fixed in the desktop application by now.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-01-19T10:24:08+00:00

    Looks like someone else posted a similar question on a forum that is typically accessible within MS Teams apps button Help > Suggest a feature.

    I’ve just upvoted.

    If there’s more votes, then this may even be considered for implementation, maybe 🤞🏻

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-01-17T23:23:14+00:00

    Another absolutely staggering omission by the developers of Teams. This need should have been anticipated and addressed prior to the first release. The fact that it was not tells you exactly how much testing was performed. Keep trying guys, sooner or later you'll reach minimum viable product

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