How to delete Microsoft teams chat

Dear @Arnold,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A. 

Thank you for the clarification. I’ve taken some time to look into this scenario carefully, because I understand how concerning it is to have a Teams chat containing inappropriate content and to want it removed as soon as possible.

1. Why you can’t “delete a chat” the way you might expect

In Microsoft Teams (both 1:1 and group chats), there is currently no supported way to permanently delete an entire chat thread or remove chat messages “for everyone” on demand. This is by design, because Teams chat content is treated as a record of communication and is governed by compliance/audit requirements rather than being something that end users (or even most admins) can freely erase. This is also why the Delete chat option is no longer available in the Teams client.

2. Why Graph Explorer shows a permission error (expected behavior)

Even if permissions appear to be granted in Microsoft Graph, purging Teams chat messages is not a standard Graph operation. The capability to remove messages across the tenant is handled within the Microsoft Purview compliance boundary (not the regular Teams UI or typical Graph permissions).

Because of that, seeing a permissions error in Graph Explorer is a common and expected outcome unless the correct Purview roles and licensing are in place.

The only supported and Microsoft‑approved method to remove Teams chat messages tenant‑wide is through Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium), which is intended strictly for: Legal or compliance investigations, Policy violations and Security or data‑protection incidents

This process requires:

• Appropriate eDiscovery or Compliance roles
• Suitable licenses (for example, Microsoft 365 E5 or E5 Compliance add‑ons)
• Performing the action from the Microsoft Purview portal, not Graph Explorer

You can refer to the official documentation here: Find and delete Microsoft Teams chat messages in eDiscovery

Please note that this process is not designed for everyday content management and may still retain audit records even after messages are purged.

Depending on what you need to achieve, these are the realistic options:

• If you mainly want users to stop seeing the content: users can hide/remove the chat from their own view, and the sender may be able to delete their own message if your messaging policies allow it.
• If the content is abusive or violates policy: preserve the evidence (do not alter it) and escalate to your IT/Compliance administrator so they can determine whether a Purview eDiscovery purge is appropriate.

I hope this clarifies why the “delete chat” behavior is limited in Teams and why the Graph permission error is expected in this situation. If you run into any issues while trying the steps, or if something still doesn’t feel quite right, please don’t hesitate to reach out again. I’ll do my best to support you however I can.  

Looking forward to hearing back from you with any updates or additional details. 

Warm regards, 

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To delete a Microsoft Teams chat, you can use the Microsoft Graph API, specifically through eDiscovery processes. Here are the steps you can follow:

1. Get the eDiscovery Case ID: Use Graph Explorer to retrieve the ID for the eDiscovery case that contains the chat messages you want to delete. You can do this by running a GET request to https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/security/cases/ediscoveryCases.
2. Get the eDiscovery Search ID: After obtaining the case ID, you need to retrieve the search ID that corresponds to the search you created to find the chat messages. This can be done with a GET request to https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/security/cases/ediscoveryCases/{ediscoveryCaseID}/searches.
3. Delete the Chat Messages: Once you have both the case ID and the search ID, you can delete the chat messages by running a POST request to https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/security/cases/ediscoveryCases/{ediscoveryCaseID}/searches/{ediscoverySearchID}/purgeData. If the request is successful, you will receive a confirmation response.

If you are in a US Government cloud environment where Graph Explorer is not available, you can use PowerShell to perform these actions instead.

Make sure you have the necessary permissions, such as ediscovery.ReadWrite.All, to perform these operations.

Be cautious when deleting messages as this action is irreversible, and ensure that you are targeting the correct messages to avoid accidental data loss.