Temporary chat access

Question

I created a temporary chat not realizing it didn't save before I was able to export the information. As an admin, I would like to access this chat.

Answer 1

Hello Augustine,

By design, when a user initiates a "Temporary Chat" in Microsoft Copilot, the conversation is not saved to their personal Copilot chat history or memory.

However, since you are an admin, you might be able to retrieve the information depending on your organization's Microsoft 365 compliance configurations:

1. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery**:** If your organization has retention policies applied to Microsoft 365 Copilot interactions, the prompts and responses are still captured by the backend for compliance purposes, regardless of whether the user was in a temporary chat.
2. How to search**:** You can use the Microsoft Purview compliance portal to run an eDiscovery search on the specific user's account. Copilot interactions are typically stored in hidden folders within the user's Exchange mailbox (often alongside Teams message data).
3. Audit Logs**:** You can also check the Microsoft 365 Audit Logs for Copilot activity events to trace when the query happened, which can help narrow down your eDiscovery search.

Important Note: If your tenant does not have Purview retention policies or audit logging actively configured to capture Copilot data prior to this chat occurring, the information from that temporary session is permanently lost and cannot be recovered by any means.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction!