What is Microsoft 365 Group Expiration Policy?

In Microsoft 365, a Group Expiration Policy helps you manage the lifecycle of your Teams, SharePoint Sites, Yammer Communities, and associated mailboxes. Since these workspaces are part of a Microsoft 365 Group, the expiration policy applies to all of them. It’s an essential tool for keeping your environment organized and reducing unnecessary clutter.

By setting an expiration timeframe, administrators can ensure that unused and unwanted groups are automatically removed, keeping your tenant tidy and your Microsoft 365 environment running efficiently.

Once an expiration policy is applied, group owners will receive notification emails as the expiration date nears, reminding them to renew their groups if they’re still needed. If the group isn’t renewed, along with all associated workspaces (e.g., mailbox, Planner, SharePoint site, and Team), it will be soft-deleted. Owners can recover these soft-deleted groups for the next 30 days before they’re permanently deleted from the tenant.

Setting up a Group Expiration Policy is simple and can be done directly through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Azure Active Directory
2. Navigate to Groups > Expiration
3. Set the expiration policy by defining a group lifetime—the number of days the group should remain active.
4. If no owners are present for the group, add email contact details to ensure someone receives the renewal notifications.
5. Select which groups should have the expiration policy applied.
6. Save your settings.

As part of the Group Expiration Policy, auto-renewal is now automatically enabled by default. This means that actively used groups will be automatically renewed, and Group Owners don’t need to take any action for renewal.

Actions that trigger auto-renewal include:

• SharePoint: Viewing, editing, downloading, moving, sharing, or uploading files (Note: Viewing a SharePoint page does not count).
• Outlook: Joining a group, reading or sending group messages, or liking a message.
• Teams: Visiting a Teams channel.
• Yammer: Uploading a document to SharePoint within a community.

While the Group Expiration Policy is a powerful tool for maintaining control of your Microsoft 365 Groups, it comes with some limitations: 

• Premium Feature: The Group Expiration Policy is only available with Azure AD Premium license subscriptions, meaning every user who is a member of a group with this policy must have a premium license.
• Admin Permissions: Only Global or User Administrators can enable the Group Expiration Policy for your tenant.
• One Policy for All Groups: Currently, only one expiration policy can be configured across all groups in your Azure AD organization, meaning you cannot apply different expiration policies for different group types.
• Maximum of 500 Groups: If you want to apply the policy to selected groups only, there’s a maximum of 500 groups that can have the expiration policy applied. This might not work for larger organizations with more groups.
• Minimum Expiry Time: The minimum expiration timeframe is 30 days, which may be too long for short-term projects or quick turnaround tasks.
• Soft-Delete Only: The expiration action is limited to soft-delete—if the group is not renewed and remains unused, it will be deleted 30 days after expiration.

The permanent deletion of groups and associated content is a significant concern for organizations looking to retain some conversations, files, or channels. Microsoft Teams offers an archiving option, but this is a manual process. Alternatively, a retention policy can be set to retain content like files and conversations for a set number of days before deletion.

In ProvisionPoint 365, you have the flexibility to apply different Group Expiration Policies to various workspaces, unlike the default Microsoft 365 policy, which is more limited. This means you can set tailored expiration dates for different types of groups, such as project-based teams and departmental groups, ensuring that each workspace’s lifecycle is managed according to its specific needs.

With ProvisionPoint 365, you can create custom expiration dates and actions that apply to different workspaces like Teams, SharePoint Sites, and Yammer Communities. Here's how you can easily apply these policies and make sure everything stays organized and compliant:

One of the most powerful features in ProvisionPoint 365 is the ability to use metadata to define expiration policies. For example, you can use a custom field like “Project End Date” to set an expiration date that automatically calculates based on the metadata you define for each workspace.

Here’s a screenshot of the Lease Settings where you can set these custom fields and expiration policies.

This setting allows you to define the expiration date in a way that reflects the specific needs of each project or group. The "Project End Date" field can be used to calculate the exact expiration date, ensuring that the workspace is decommissioned once the project is completed.

Once you’ve set the expiration date, it’s critical to make sure the relevant parties (such as group owners) are aware of the upcoming expiration. ProvisionPoint 365 provides powerful reminder functionality, allowing you to specify when reminders should be sent and who should receive them.

For example, you can set up reminders to be sent to Group Owners 20 days before the expiration date, and then again every 5 days leading up to the expiration. This ensures that group owners are consistently notified, giving them ample time to renew or take action before the expiration.

Below is a screenshot of the Reminder Settings, where you can configure these notifications.

By customizing the reminder intervals and recipients, you ensure that the necessary people are kept in the loop, helping to prevent accidental expirations and unnecessary deletions.

Once the expiration date is set, ProvisionPoint 365 allows you to configure a variety of expiry actions to automate what happens when the expiration date is reached. These actions could include notifying the site owners, archiving the workspace, or even removing site owners.

In some cases, you may want to delete the group entirely or take other actions like emailing administrators for further action. The ProvisionPoint 365 Actions provide you with the flexibility to choose what happens when the group expires, allowing for more customized workflows.

Here’s a screenshot of the Expiry Actions available in ProvisionPoint 365:

As you can see, you can notify site owners of the expiry, change the archive state (e.g., archiving the group content), and even delete the group from the directory if necessary. You can also email administrators for further action if needed.

With this flexibility, you can ensure that each group is managed according to its lifecycle, whether it’s a long-term department group or a short-term project-based workspace.

• No Minimum Workspace Lifecycle: Unlike Microsoft 365’s Group Expiration Policy, ProvisionPoint 365 has no minimum lifecycle length, allowing you to set expiry dates for quick turnaround projects (less than 30 days).
• Self-Service for Users: Group Owners can manage their workspace’s lifecycle by updating the lease and expiration dates themselves, significantly reducing the administrative burden on your IT team.
• Cost-Effective: ProvisionPoint 365 doesn’t require additional Azure licensing, making it a cost-effective solution for managing lifecycle policies across your organization.

By using ProvisionPoint 365, you can gain full control over your workspaces’ expiration dates, automate reminders, and configure custom actions—all without the restrictions of Microsoft 365’s default policies. This level of customization helps you manage your Microsoft 365 environment more effectively, saving time, ensuring compliance, and reducing unnecessary costs.

Managing the lifecycle of Microsoft 365 Groups is essential for maintaining a clean, organized tenant. While the Group Expiration Policy in Microsoft 365 offers useful functionality, it has its limitations. For more flexibility, ProvisionPoint 365 allows you to apply different expiration policies for different workspaces, ensuring that each project, department, or group follows the right lifecycle rules.

With ProvisionPoint 365, you can easily manage Teams, SharePoint Sites, mailboxes, and more, while avoiding the constraints of the default Microsoft 365 policy. It provides a customizable, cost-effective solution without the need for additional Azure licensing.

Find out more about ProvisionPoint 365 Lifecycle Management so you can implement improved Microsoft 365 governance and create compliant workspaces.