Issue with DELTA query on list-items not returning 'deleted' items

Question

I'm using the GET /sites/{siteId}/lists/{listId}/items/delta API in Graph Explorer, following the documentation at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/listitem-delta?view=graph-rest-beta&tabs=http. However, I've noticed that the API isn't returning any records of 'deleted' items, unlike what's shown in the example at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/listitem-delta?view=graph-rest-beta&tabs=javascript#response-2. I was previously able to get 'deleted' items with this API a few days ago. Has something changed?

Answer 1

I had this exact same problem and finally found a solution. It is a nuance with the difference between the listItem and driveItem APIs. Basically the delta query for the driveItem API gives you the information you need that the listItem delta query is lacking.

However, there is a caveat to the way that you call the driveItem delta query. The API documentation says that you can do a GET /sites/{siteId}/drive/root/delta to fetch the changes to the driveItems in a given site. But that doesn't seem to always return all of the data you need (or doesn't actually track all of the changes properly). When you call the same drive delta API with GET /drives/{drive-id}/root/delta, it returns all of the information you need for handling deleted data. It returns a deleted state and the relevant parent reference information to ensure you can properly identify that item in your system.

Here is a link to the documentation for reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/driveitem-delta?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http

Some other notes that were relevant for my use case:

• If you need the listItem information (for processing non-deletes) you can always use ?$expand=listItem to get that information.
• If you don't know the drive-id for your site, just a simple fetch to the GET /sites/{siteId} endpoint with a ?$expand=drive query param will give you the drive information you need to call the drive delta query. You can also use that query param on the sites list query.

Answer 2

Hi @Vikharankar, Vishakha,

When using delta query Microsoft Graph returns as deleted new/updated/deleted items that are not in start-end date range of the initial request.

Please check if you have this issue in the case. Here is the document for tracking changes

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/delta-query-overview

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