How does versioning in SharePoint Online work with a retention policy that always retains content?

Dear respected SteveAZ72,

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you.

As per your description, in SharePoint Online, versioning and retention policies serve two distinct purposes but can interact with each other.

Versioning is used to keep a history of changes in documents. By default, SharePoint Online keeps the last 500 major versions of a document. However, you can modify this setting to keep fewer versions (e.g., the last 50 or 100 versions), which can help in managing storage.

Retention policies are used to ensure that content is kept for a specified period for compliance reasons. When a retention policy is set to 'always retain', it means that the content is preserved indefinitely, and SharePoint Online will not automatically delete it.

When you have a retention policy that always retains content, and you change the versioning settings on a document library, here’s what you generally need to consider:

1.The existing versions of documents that exceed the new version limit won’t be deleted automatically if they are subject to the retention policy. They will be kept as per the policy's rules. For example, if the retention policy is set to always retain content, even if you lower the number of versions SharePoint retains, it won't delete the old versions until the retention period expires, because the policy requires that the content be retained.

2.Non-Record Files: For non-record files, the old versions will still exist and be recoverable until the retention period expires, even if they are not moved to the Preservation Hold Library. For example, if a document is not marked as a record and you change the versioning limit, the "old" versions past your new limit (e.g., past the 100th version if you set the limit to 100) will not be immediately deleted. They will be retained as per the retention policy settings.

3.New Versions: Once you lower the version limit, SharePoint will begin retaining fewer versions for any new changes. For instance, if you reduce the versioning limit from 500 to 100, then SharePoint will only keep the most recent 100 versions after the change.

4.Retention Override: If the retention policy specifies that all content must be retained, it will override the versioning settings. This means that even if you have set the versioning to retain the last 50 versions, the retention policy will ensure that all versions are retained, as long as the retention policy is in effect.

In light of these points, when you change the versioning settings from 500 to a lower number, such as 50 or 100, for files under an 'always retain' retention policy, the old versions that fall outside the new version limit would typically be retained until the end of the retention period, unless they are explicitly removed, or the policy is altered.

Appreciate your patience and understanding and thank you for your time and cooperation.

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad

We had similar issue. In our case Limit is set to 500. Since retention policy is enabled. All versions are staying. We have one file where it has 5683 versions. Now user not able to view versions of that file when opening excel file either in desktop Application or in excel web.

We are getting 'Looks like we cannot show version history for this file right now.'

Can you help how to manage these versions better when retention policy is enabled.

Hi respected SteveAZ72,

I'm writing a follow up this case, and I haven’t received any information from you, may I know have you checked above reply? Feel free to post back if you need further assistance.

Have a good day and stay safe 😊

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad