Topic
This article explains how to back up and download Microsoft Teams private chats.
Environment
- NinjaOne SaaS Backup
- Microsoft 365
Description
Microsoft Teams private chats are direct messages between individual users that are not part of a larger team chat. Follow the instructions below to set up and activate private chat backups.
Private chat backup is only available with the Backup+Archiver subscription.
Setting up Private Chat Backup
To set up the Private Chat backup feature for an organization, follow these steps:
- Log in to the end-user portal and click the Private Chat tab from the dashboard.
- Click Reauthenticate Now. SaaS Backup will redirect you to the Credentials tab on the Account Settings page.
- Click Reauthenticate to authorize the backup admin account to reauthenticate. Once reauthentication is complete, all Microsoft 365 (M365) accounts currently backed up will display in the Private Chat tab with an INACTIVE status.
- You will see a blue banner asking you to set up the Customer Tenant App. Click Go to Credentials and expand the See How to Connect section near the bottom of the screen.
- Click Download Here to view the steps required for setting up the tenant application.
- Once the above steps are complete, click Test & Save Connection to complete the setup.
Activating Private Chat Backup
After the initial setup, Private Chat backups will be inactive for all users. You'll need to activate Private Chat backup before performing backups. Follow these steps to activate Private Chat Backups:
- On the Private Chat tab, you can activate in bulk or individually:
- To activate in bulk on all accounts, select all accounts and then click Activate.
- To activate individual users, select the private chat account and click Activate.
- Click Yes, Continue in the confirmation dialog box.
You can review the last backup status on this page once NinjaOne SaaS Backup has completed the backup.
In Teams Chat, there are various system notifications such as Call Ended, Deleted Message, User Joined or Left Chat, and others. Since the MS Graph API treats these notifications as messages, we back them up. However, when the End-User Portal detects a "System Event Message", it will display "System Event Message can't be previewed" instead of the message itself.
Private Chat Download
Follow these steps to download a private chat:
- Log in to the end-user portal, and from the dashboard page, select the Private Chat tab
- Move your cursor over the email address. You will see the download option on the right.
- Click Download. You can select from three file formats: EML, PDF, and CSV.
- Select the required file format. You can choose to download text only or text with attachments.
- Once you select the required download option, a prompt will appear to initiate the download. Select the desired date range and then click Generate Download.
- Click Yes, continue, to proceed.
You can check on the status of the download by navigating to System Status → Downloads. - Once the download completes, click the link to download the data.
Private chats are downloaded as .zip files, no larger than 1GB. If a download is larger than 1GB, SaaS Backup will separate the download into multiple .zip files. Chats selected without a specific date range will only contain the last 90 days of chat history. If you select a duration of more than 90 days, SaaS Backup will split the data into multiple files. Any attachments in the downloaded chat will appear in the Attachments folder in the .zip file.