Manual method
- First identify whether you use personal Teams or an organization account; these are different routes.
- For personal Teams, follow the official export page linked in Microsoft’s guide, sign in and select available messages/media or other data categories.
- Request the package, return when ready and save it. Export contacts separately where needed.
- Extract the supplied archive and inspect messages.json and file folders. For work/school Teams, ask the organization’s authorized administrator for the permitted export route.
What you get: Microsoft’s consumer guide applies to Teams for personal use, not an organization’s complete chat history. A general Microsoft privacy activity archive is also not automatically the message/media export. Keep separate exports and their described scopes. Provider instructions.
Size and waiting time
Planning example: 1 GB; light/heavy scenarios: 0.05–20 GB. These are estimates, not a measured population average or fixed limits. A personal-use chat archive with modest attachments. A company tenant or large shared-file library is a separate, potentially much larger scope.
Preparation: Preparation varies by category; allow hours to days for planning and follow the status shown by Microsoft. Its separate diagnostic-data deadline does not establish a chat-export deadline.
Network transfer of 1 GB: about 19 min at 10 Mbps, 4 min at 50 Mbps, or 2 min at 100 Mbps. This assumes 70% sustained throughput and excludes preparation, manual work and extraction. These are download estimates; online backup takes additional time at your upload speed. Transfer calculations and large-file examples.
Store and check your archive
An encrypted external SSD or hard drive is a good main archive for this collection. Allow roughly 3 GB of working space for the example, including an original, an extracted working copy and room to check it. Very compressed packages can need more. A USB key is useful for a spare copy, but should not be the only one. An encrypted online copy protects against losing the local devices.
Keep the original in microsoft_teams/YYYY-MM-DD/original/. Record the account alias, selected scope, date range and missing items. Open old and recent records and sample attachments offline, then compare file sizes or checksums after copying. Keep the source account until you have checked the result. Storage and recovery instructions.
Sources and review
Public documentation was reviewed on 27 October 2026. No signed-in export or restoration was performed. Account options and availability can change; follow the current provider instructions.