There is one sentence I have to say in almost every customer project: “This file does not live in the team. It lives in the OneDrive of exactly one person.” And every time, it gets quiet for a moment. Because hardly anyone knows where Teams actually stores files and recordings — until that person leaves the company and the links are dead.
This is not some exotic edge case. It is the default, every day, in every tenant. And because Teams makes the file look like it belongs to the team, the difference only shows up when it hurts. So let us sort this out properly, once.
Chat or channel — that decides everything
Teams has two storage locations, and which one applies depends only on where you share a file.
Share a file in a private or group chat, and it lands in the sender’s OneDrive — in a folder called “Microsoft Teams Chat Files”. The others in the chat do not get a clone, they get a sharing link. The ownership stays with one person: you.
Share the same file in a channel, and it lands in the team’s SharePoint. It belongs to the team, not to you. With versioning, clear permissions and — the key point — it survives every staff change.
| Where you share | Where the file lives | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Channel · SharePoint File belongs to the team |
Team-owned, versioning, survives offboarding | Anything meant to outlive the conversation |
| Chat · OneDrive File belongs to the sender |
Tied to one person, links break at offboarding | Throwaway files: a PDF, a screenshot |
And the recordings? Same logic, bigger risk
With meeting recordings it is the same pattern. A recording from a normal meeting lands in the organizer’s OneDrive, in a “Recordings” folder. A recording from a channel meeting lands in the team’s SharePoint. So who records, and where the meeting happens, decides who “owns” the recording.
On top of that comes a second trap: recordings expire after 120 days by default. After that they move to the recycle bin and are eventually gone for good.
The warning email that used to arrive before a recording was deleted is no longer sent by Microsoft. So the expiration now happens silently — no one gets reminded before the recording is gone.
And yes, a retention policy in Purview takes precedence over the Teams expiration. But it only helps if you have set it up. If you rely blindly on the 120 days, the recording of that important meeting is one day simply not there anymore.
The real problem is called offboarding
Now comes the part that stalls projects. As long as everyone is still in the company, everything works — the links are alive, the files open, nobody notices a thing. The trouble starts when someone leaves.
If the OneDrive of the departed person is deleted after the retention period, all the chat files and all the recordings that person owned disappear with it. The chat message stays visible. The link underneath is dead. And suddenly half a project is stuck, because nobody can reach that one file anymore.
Channel files in SharePoint are not affected — they belong to the team. Only chat and OneDrive content is tied to the person. That is exactly why the storage location is not a detail, but a governance decision.
How to do it right
The fix is unspectacular, but it works. Five habits you build for yourself — and teach your team.
What stays
Teams chat is not document management. Whoever shares a file in a chat owns it — and takes it along when they leave. For everything that belongs to the team, there is exactly one right place: the channel. The rest is throwaway.
A chat upload is like an espresso you buy for someone: the moment your colleague leaves, the cup is gone too.
What you take away
- Chat files live in the sender’s OneDrive, channel files in the team’s SharePoint.
- Recordings follow the same logic — and expire after 120 days by default, now without a warning email.
- At offboarding, chat links and recordings break the moment the OneDrive is deleted.
- Share team-relevant content in the channel, share existing files as a link, not as an upload.
- Check your offboarding process: migrate the OneDrive instead of deleting it blindly.
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