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
    2022-03-23T05:53:25+00:00

    I have found a similar workaround that doesn't involve a colleague. Hover over the search result you do find and click "..." then "Pin". Now go to the conversation, and click on the pinned message at the top of the chat. You will be taken to the full conversation surrounding the individual message you found.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-04-06T13:14:23+00:00

    OMG! You are a genius!

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-04-06T15:03:29+00:00

    I have found a similar workaround that doesn't involve a colleague. Hover over the search result you do find and click "..." then "Pin". Now go to the conversation, and click on the pinned message at the top of the chat. You will be taken to the full conversation surrounding the individual message you found.

    This is great! This certainly is the best workaround I have seen. I can't believe this works, but I tried it and it does.

    And if this works this means MS Teams has all the data in question, why wouldn't they make it easier in exposing?

    MS Team crew: Wake-up please, this needs to be fixed, it's a huge design flaw in teams.

    The only downside to this approach is that it PINs the message for everyone in that chat. It could be a large crowd of people there and may wonder why you pinned it. It also records that you pinned something, and records that you unpinned something when you are done. Still, not a deal breaker, and still certainly the best method to locate messages with context.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-04-12T14:30:51+00:00

    @Richard Vicary

    Spot on. Not the fastest or easiest, but provides exactly what so many people are looking for.

    Thank you so much for sharing.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-04-25T22:36:20+00:00

    This issue has been around since at least mid 2019 with no progress. All uservoice threads are gone. Any new @Microsoft?

    Teams messages search function does not show full conversation - Microsoft Tech Community

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