Export Teams Chat (2026): Every Method That Works

How to Export a Teams Chat

Microsoft Teams has no export button for chats. There is no "Save conversation" or "Export to file" anywhere in the Teams client - a gap that surprises everyone who needs a chat in writing for the first time. Exporting a Teams chat is still possible, but the method depends on who you are (the chat participant or an admin) and, critically, on whether the person whose chat you need still works at the organization. This guide covers every method that actually works in 2026, verified against Microsoft's current documentation, including the scenario that fills the Microsoft Q&A forums: getting a departed user's Teams chat out in readable form.

Method 1: Manual Copy (Participants, Small Chats)

For a chat you are part of and only need occasionally, the low-tech options work:

• Select and copy. Click the first message, scroll, Shift-click the last, copy, and paste into Word or OneNote. Formatting partially survives; images and reactions mostly do not.
• Print to PDF. With the chat open in the Teams web client, the browser's print function captures what is currently loaded on screen - which for long chats means scrolling up repeatedly first to load history.

Fine for a one-off. Useless for compliance, for long histories, and for any chat you are not a member of.

Method 2: Purview eDiscovery (Admins - the Supported Route)

Teams chat messages are journaled into the participants' Exchange Online mailboxes as compliance records, which is why Microsoft's supported export path for Teams chats is the same eDiscovery flow used for email:

1. Go to the Microsoft Purview portal (purview.microsoft.com) with an account holding eDiscovery permissions.
2. Create a case and a search; scope the data source to the user's mailbox and add keywords or date ranges to find the conversation.
3. Run an export. Two options matter for Teams content: "Include Teams and Viva Engage conversations" pulls in messages posted around each matching item so threads stay coherent, and "Organize conversation into HTML transcript" assembles chat messages into a readable, threaded HTML transcript rather than hundreds of individual message files.
4. Download the export package from Process manager in the browser.

The transcript option is the closest Microsoft gets to "export a Teams chat in a readable format." It works for 1:1 chats, group chats, and channel messages (channel messages are journaled to the Team's group mailbox). For the mailbox side of the same workflow, see how to export an Office 365 mailbox to PST.

Worth knowing: the old PowerShell export command (New-ComplianceSearchAction -Export) was retired by Microsoft in May 2025, and the classic Content Search interface followed in August 2025 - guides describing either are out of date.

Method 3: The Microsoft Graph Export API (Developers)

Microsoft provides Teams Export APIs in Microsoft Graph that can programmatically retrieve chat messages, including for deleted users. They are protected APIs: access requires a formal application to Microsoft justifying the use case, and message retrieval is metered and billed per message. This is the route for ISVs and large enterprises building their own tooling - not a practical answer for an admin who needs one conversation this week.

Exporting for a Specific Outcome

The three methods above are the mechanisms. Which one you reach for depends on what you need to be holding at the end.

How to export Teams chat history

"History" usually means everything a person sent and received rather than one conversation, and that changes the approach. Scope a Purview eDiscovery search to the user instead of to a chat, which picks up their one-to-one and group conversations together.

Teams chat messages are stored in the participants' Exchange mailboxes, in a hidden folder beneath Conversation History. eDiscovery searches that folder, so a user-scoped search returns chat history alongside mail unless you filter by item type.

Two things to plan for. The volume is usually larger than people expect, because every group chat the person belonged to is included. And the export preserves content and metadata rather than layout, so readability has to be reconstructed afterwards.

How to export a Teams chat between two specific users

This is a scoping question rather than a separate method. A one-to-one chat is stored in both participants' mailboxes, so searching either one returns it. Searching both and removing duplicates is the safer route when you need certainty that nothing is missing.

In Purview, build the search with both people as custodians, then narrow by date range and, where you know them, by keyword. The result set will still contain their other conversations, so the filtering happens at review rather than at search. There is no way to ask Teams directly for "the chat between A and B" as a discrete object.

One thing to check before you start: if either participant has left and their account has been deleted, that side of the conversation may no longer be searchable. The surviving participant's copy is then the only record of it.

How to export a Teams chat to PDF

There is no native Teams action that produces a PDF, which is why this comes up more than any other version of the question.

For a short conversation, select the messages, paste them into a document, and save or print that as PDF. It is quick and it is perfectly adequate for reference.

It is not adequate as evidence. A pasted transcript carries no verifiable metadata, no proof of completeness, and nothing that distinguishes it from a document somebody typed out. Where the reason for the PDF is an HR case, a dispute or a legal request, run a Purview eDiscovery export instead and keep the native output as the record. Converting to PDF afterwards is a presentation step, not the archive.

How to export a Teams chat to email

There is no forward-this-conversation action in Teams. Individual messages can be copied into an email by hand.

For anything larger this is simpler than it looks. Purview eDiscovery exports in mail formats including PST and EML, which open directly in Outlook. If what you wanted was the chat as email, the eDiscovery export already is that, and no conversion step is needed.

The Hard Case: Exporting a Teams Chat After the User Has Left

This is the scenario behind the most-viewed forum threads - literally titled things like "how to export a Teams chat conversation in a readable format after a user has left the organization." The answer depends entirely on what happened to the departed user's account:

• Account still exists (licensed or on litigation hold): the eDiscovery method above works. The chat compliance records are in their mailbox, searchable and exportable.
• Licence removed, account deleted: the mailbox - and the Teams chat records journaled inside it - follows the deletion clock. Once the account is permanently deleted (30 days after deletion, by default), those chat records are gone. No eDiscovery search can find a mailbox that no longer exists.
• The workaround Microsoft offers is keeping the mailbox alive: hold a licence for the account, or place it on hold and convert to an inactive mailbox - both of which carry licensing requirements and keep the data inside a system built for lawyers, not for the manager who just needs to read a conversation.

In other words: whether a departed user's Teams chat is exportable is decided at offboarding time, months before anyone asks for it. If the account was simply deleted to save the licence, the answer to "can we get the chat?" is no.

Retention Policies Are Not Export

A common misconception: "we have a Teams retention policy, so the chats are backed up." Retention policies control how long Teams messages are kept or deleted - they stop users purging history and enforce deletion schedules. What they do not do is give you a copy: there is no export in a retention policy, the retained data still lives inside the user's mailbox (with the same departed-user problem above), and reading it still requires the eDiscovery workflow. Retention answers "how long does it exist?" - not "can I have it in a file?"

The Automated Alternative: Archive at Offboarding

Chipmunk closes the departed-user gap by making the archive decision automatic. When an account is disabled in Microsoft Entra ID, Chipmunk archives the user's Teams chats, Exchange mailbox and OneDrive into Azure Blob Storage in your own subscription - then the licence can be reclaimed without destroying the data.

When the request for a chat arrives later, there is no eDiscovery case and no PST: open the departed user's archive, search or browse to the conversation, read it threaded, and export it for legal, HR, or the manager who asked. Every access is captured in an audit trail, retention and immutable storage tiers are available in your own Azure, and the archive stays searchable across every departed user at once. Chipmunk deploys from the Azure Marketplace into your own environment - the full workflow is in the Microsoft 365 departed user archiving guide.

Where a chat file physically lives decides whether it survives the sender leaving, and it is not where most people assume. That split is covered in SharePoint vs OneDrive vs Teams.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I export a Teams chat conversation?

For a chat you participate in, copy-paste or print-to-PDF from the Teams web client are the only built-in options - Teams has no export button. For anything bigger, an admin exports via Purview eDiscovery: search the participant's mailbox (Teams chats are journaled there as compliance records) and export with the "Organize conversation into HTML transcript" option for a readable, threaded transcript.

How do I export a Teams chat after the user has left the organization?

Only if their mailbox still exists. If the account is licensed or was placed on hold (inactive mailbox), Purview eDiscovery can search and export their chats as HTML transcripts. If the account was deleted and the deletion window has passed, the chat records went with the mailbox and cannot be recovered. Tools like Chipmunk avoid this by archiving Teams chats, mailbox and OneDrive automatically at offboarding, so the conversation is retrievable from your own Azure storage regardless of what happened to the account.

Can you export a Teams chat?

Yes, but not with a single button. Participants can select messages and copy them out manually, which suits a short conversation and nothing larger. Administrators can run a Purview eDiscovery search and export the results, which is the supported route for anything that has to hold up as a record. Developers can use the Microsoft Graph export API. There is no built-in "export this chat" command in the Teams client itself, which is why the question comes up so often.

How do I export Teams chat history rather than a single conversation?

Purview eDiscovery is the only practical route for full history. Scope a search to the user rather than to one chat, which picks up their one-to-one and group chats together, then export the result set. Chat history lives in a hidden folder in the user's mailbox, so the eDiscovery export produces mail-format output rather than anything that looks like the Teams interface. Expect to reconstruct readability afterwards; the export preserves the content and metadata, not the layout.

Can I print a Teams chat?

Not directly. Teams has no print command for a conversation. The workable approach is to select the messages, paste them into a document, and print or save that as PDF. For a conversation of any length this becomes impractical quickly, and it produces something with no evidentiary value because nothing about it is verifiable. If the reason for printing is a dispute, an HR case or a legal request, use eDiscovery export instead so the metadata travels with the content.

How do I export a Teams chat to email?

There is no forward-to-email action for a whole conversation. Individual messages can be copied into an email manually. For anything larger, a Purview eDiscovery export produces PST or EML output, which is already an email format and can be opened in Outlook. That is usually what people mean when they ask for chat as email.

Is there a Teams chat exporter tool?

Third-party exporters exist, and they generally work by calling the same Microsoft Graph APIs an administrator could call directly, so they inherit the same permissions and the same limits. The consideration worth weighing is scope: a tool that exports on request solves a one-off, but the recurring version of this problem is departed employees, where the chat has to be captured before the account is removed rather than retrieved afterwards. That is an offboarding decision rather than an export tool decision.

Does a Teams retention policy back up chats?

No. Retention policies control how long messages are kept or deleted - they prevent premature deletion but provide no export and no separate copy. The retained messages still live in user mailboxes, so a departed user's deleted account still takes its chat history with it, retention policy or not.

Can I export a Teams chat to PDF or a text file?

Not directly from Teams. The practical paths are print-to-PDF from the Teams web client (participants, short chats), the eDiscovery HTML transcript export (admins - HTML opens in any browser and prints to PDF cleanly), or an archiving tool that stores chats in readable, exportable form.

Related reading

• How to archive a team in Microsoft Teams - what archiving a whole team does, and why it does not reduce storage.
• How to export an Office 365 mailbox to PST
• Microsoft 365 departed user archiving: the full workflow
• How to archive a shared mailbox
• Inactive vs shared vs archive mailbox

Decide at Offboarding, Not at the Request

Whether a departed user's Teams chat can ever be exported is decided the day they leave. See how Chipmunk archives Teams chats automatically - it deploys from the Azure Marketplace into your own Azure environment. Questions: sales@smikar.com.