On January 3, 2026, a message center notification landed in tenant admin inboxes across Europe. MC1211579 announced the retirement of several compliance features that have been part of SharePoint since its server days, more than a decade ago. We are tracking this and related developments in our SharePoint Online Radar.
For some organizations, this is a formality. They moved to Microsoft Purview years ago. For others, particularly those with heavily customized SharePoint deployments or regulated industries still running legacy compliance configurations, the April 2026 deadline leaves barely three months to audit, plan, and execute a migration that Microsoft will not perform automatically.
SharePoint is approaching its 25th anniversary. Even with its recent browser interface refresh, dig deep enough and you will find the 2010–2013 era UX, or even earlier, breaking through in places like site information policies and the compliance center. Microsoft has decided these legacy features are past their expiration date.
Microsoft is retiring four legacy SharePoint Online compliance features in April 2026: Information Management Policies, In-Place Records Management, Document deletion policies, and Site closure and deletion policies. Backend services may stop functioning. Configuration options will disappear from the UI and PowerShell alike. There is no automatic migration path.
The replacement is Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management and Purview Records Management. This modern platform offers flexible configuration options but also comes with additional licensing requirements that may catch organizations off guard. Manual retention labels require Microsoft 365 Business Premium at minimum. Automatic retention and full records management require E5 licensing.
This article explains what is retiring, what it means for your organization, and how to prepare before the April deadline.
The Four Features Being Retired
Microsoft's message center notification (MC1211579, updated January 7, 2026) identifies four specific feature areas being retired.
1. Information Management Policies
Information Management Policies allow administrators to define retention schedules at the library, folder, or content type level. They control how long content is retained and can trigger actions like auditing, labeling with barcodes, or deletion after a specified period.
These policies were originally designed for SharePoint Server and carried over to SharePoint Online. They operate at the site collection level and include features like:
- Retention policies based on creation, modification, or declaration dates
- Auditing to track document access and modifications
- Barcodes for physical document tracking
- Labels that print document metadata on printed copies
- Policy statements displayed to users
After April 2026, these configuration options will no longer be available through the UI or programmatically, and backend processing that enforces these policies may stop functioning.
2. In-Place Records Management
In-Place Records Management allows documents to be declared as records while remaining in their original location. This differs from the traditional Record Center model where records are moved to a separate repository.
Key capabilities include:
- Vault abilities that prevent direct tampering with declared records
- Record Restrictions that control what users can do with record-declared content
- Record Declaration Availability settings that determine who can declare records
- Declaration Roles that assign record declaration responsibilities
Organizations using in-place records for regulatory compliance, particularly in financial services, healthcare, and legal sectors, need to understand that this model will be replaced by Purview Records Management retention labels.
3. Document Deletion Policies
Document deletion policies, part of the SharePoint Compliance Center, enable automatic deletion of content from sites after a specified period. These policies help organizations manage content lifecycle and reduce storage consumption.
The retirement affects deletion-only scenarios. Organizations using these policies to automatically purge outdated content will need to recreate this functionality using Purview retention policies with delete actions.
4. Site Closure and Deletion Policies
Site closure and deletion policies control the lifecycle of SharePoint sites themselves, not just their content. Administrators can define when sites should be closed (made read-only) and eventually deleted based on inactivity or age.
This is particularly relevant for organizations with site provisioning governance. The replacement approach combines Purview Data Lifecycle Management with SharePoint Advanced Management for site-level lifecycle control.
For ongoing coverage of SharePoint Online changes, see our SharePoint Online Radar.
What Retirement Actually Means
Microsoft defines retirement through several escalating consequences.
Immediate impacts (April 2026):
- Features will no longer be supported by Microsoft
- Configuration options may disappear from the user interface
- Settings will no longer be configurable through UI or programmatically
- Enable and disable actions will become unavailable
Longer-term consequences:
- Backend services supporting these behaviors may stop functioning
- Existing configurations may no longer be enforced
- Organizations lose the ability to modify or troubleshoot legacy configurations
The critical point: Microsoft will not perform any automatic migration. If you have Information Management Policies configured on a document library today, those configurations will not automatically become Purview retention policies. They will simply stop working.
What Is Not Retiring
Notably absent from the retirement announcement: Record Centers. The traditional Record Center site template, where documents are submitted and organized by record series, remains available. Microsoft retired the ability to create new Record Center sites in January 2025, but existing Record Centers continue to function.
This omission suggests that enough organizations still rely on Record Centers that Microsoft cannot retire them in this cycle. However, given the trajectory, organizations should plan their Record Center migration to Purview as a future project.
The Licensing Reality
Here is where the retirement creates significant friction.
The legacy SharePoint compliance features being retired were included in base SharePoint licensing. Every user with SharePoint access could benefit from Information Management Policies configured by administrators. Library-level retention, automatic deletion after a retention period, in-place records declaration: all of this worked without additional compliance licensing.
Microsoft Purview operates under fundamentally different licensing rules. The capabilities that replace these legacy features are stratified across license tiers, with the functionality most organizations actually need gated behind premium pricing.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium or E3 includes:
- Manual retention labels (users must apply labels themselves)
- Basic organization-wide or location-wide retention policies
- Static scope targeting (manually select specific users or groups)
- Basic DLP for Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive
Microsoft 365 E5 or E5 Compliance add-on required for:
- Automatic retention labels (system applies labels based on conditions)
- Auto-apply labels using trainable classifiers or sensitive information types
- Advanced records management with disposition reviews
- Adaptive scope targeting (dynamic rules based on user or site attributes)
- Regulatory records designation
- Default sensitivity labels for SharePoint document libraries
The critical gap: Information Management Policies allowed administrators to configure automatic retention at the library or content type level. Documents meeting the criteria were automatically retained and deleted without user intervention. Replicating this behavior in Purview requires auto-apply retention labels, which is an E5 feature.
The Price Increase in Concrete Terms
The table below shows the licensing options for organizations that need to replace legacy SharePoint compliance features with Purview equivalents. Prices reflect current list prices and the announced July 2026 increases.
| License Path | Price per User/Month | Price from July 2026 | Auto-Apply Retention | Annual Cost (100 users) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Premium (current) | $22 | $22 | No | $26,400 |
| Business Premium + Purview Suite | $32 | $32 | Limited | $38,400 |
| Microsoft 365 E3 | $36 | $42 | No | $43,200 → $50,400 |
| Microsoft 365 E3 + E5 Compliance | $48 | $54 | Yes | $57,600 → $64,800 |
| Microsoft 365 E5 | $57 | $60 | Yes | $68,400 → $72,000 |
Reading the table:
Business Premium: The most common license for European SMBs (up to 300 users). Does not include auto-apply retention labels. Organizations using Information Management Policies with automatic retention cannot replicate this functionality without upgrading.
Business Premium + Purview Suite: Microsoft introduced this $10/user add-on in September 2025. However, feedback from the Microsoft Tech Community indicates it is a stripped-down version of E5 Compliance, missing automatic sensitivity labels, Administrative Units for DLP, and Adaptive Protection. The "Limited" designation reflects these gaps.
E3 to E5: Enterprise customers face a jump from $36 to $57 per user (or $42 to $60 after July 2026). The E5 Compliance add-on at $12/user provides a middle path but still represents a significant cost increase.
The impact for a 100-user SMB currently on Business Premium:
To regain automatic retention capabilities equivalent to legacy Information Management Policies, the organization must move to E5. This increases annual licensing from $26,400 to $68,400, an additional $42,000 per year, representing a 159% increase.
The impact for a 500-user enterprise currently on E3:
Moving from E3 to E5 increases annual licensing from $216,000 to $342,000 (at current prices), an additional $126,000 per year.
The Pattern: Feature Extraction
This retirement follows a pattern that European IT administrators have observed across multiple Microsoft product lines. Features that were once included in base licensing are deprecated, rebranded under a new product umbrella, and repositioned at a premium price tier.
Information Management Policies provided automatic, library-level retention since SharePoint 2010. Organizations configured them once, and documents were retained and deleted according to policy without ongoing user effort. This functionality now requires E5 licensing to replicate in Purview.
The technical justification, that Purview offers more flexibility, better reporting, and unified governance, is valid. The licensing consequence, that maintaining existing compliance automation now costs significantly more, is equally real.
Organizations planning their migration should budget accordingly. The April 2026 retirement is not just a technical migration. It is a licensing event that may require procurement conversations, budget adjustments, and potentially difficult decisions about which compliance capabilities to retain.
Timeline and Deprecation History
Microsoft announced the deprecation plan in November 2023, establishing a phased approach:
January 2025 (already past):
- Record Center site template retired (cannot create new Record Centers)
- Record Center programmable interface retired ("send to" locations)
- Content Organizer retired
April 2026 (upcoming):
- Information Management Policies retired
- In-Place Records Management retired
- Document deletion policies retired
- Site closure and deletion policies retired
This timeline applies to both Worldwide service and Government clouds (GCC, GCC High, DoD).
What You Need To Do
1. Audit current configurations
Before planning migration, understand what you have. Check for Information Management Policies on document libraries and content types, sites with in-place records enabled, and any document deletion policies in your Compliance Policy Center.
2. Identify compliance requirements
Document what business or regulatory requirements each legacy configuration supports. This mapping determines which Purview features you need:
- Simple time-based retention → Retention policies
- Content type-specific retention → Retention labels with auto-apply
- Record declaration requirements → Regulatory records in Purview Records Management
3. Confirm licensing
Verify that your current Microsoft 365 licensing supports the Purview features you need. If gaps exist, budget and procurement conversations must happen before technical migration. Use the pricing table above to estimate costs.
4. Follow Microsoft's migration guidance
Microsoft has published detailed migration strategies for each retiring feature:
- Use Microsoft Purview risk and compliance solutions instead of older SharePoint features: Microsoft's primary guidance document explaining which Purview features replace each legacy capability
- Migration strategies for moving to Microsoft Purview solutions: Step-by-step migration procedures for Information Management Policies, In-Place Records, and deletion policies
5. Plan migration timeline
With three months until April 2026, migration planning should begin immediately. Complex deployments with extensive Information Management Policies may require phased approaches, testing in non-production environments, and careful validation before cutover.
Looking Ahead
The January 2026 announcement caught some organizations by surprise. Comments from industry observers note that expecting enterprise-level implementations to migrate to Purview in three months feels unrealistic.
Microsoft has a history of adjusting retirement dates when large customers discover impacts and push back. Whether April 2026 holds firm or gets extended remains to be seen.
But waiting for an extension is risky. The deprecation plan was announced in November 2023. Organizations had more than two years of notice before the April 2026 deadline. Those who act now have time to migrate properly. Those who wait may find themselves scrambling when legacy compliance configurations suddenly stop enforcing.
We will continue tracking this retirement and any changes to the timeline in our SharePoint Online Radar.
References
- MC1211579: Retirement of SharePoint online information management and in-place records management features
- Use Microsoft Purview risk and compliance solutions instead of older SharePoint features
- Migration strategies for moving to Microsoft Purview solutions
- Introduction to information management policies
- Configuring In-Place Records Management
- Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle and Records Management licensing
- Advancing Microsoft 365: New capabilities and pricing update
- Microsoft Purview Suite for Business Premium: Community discussion on feature limitations
