Retain what matters, delete what doesn't, and stay compliant at scale with Purview Data Lifecycle Management

As the IT director of an insurance agency prepares for a team meeting, he reviews insights from Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management to guide retention strategy updates for customer communications and policy records.

 

What is Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?

 

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management helps organizations manage information from creation to deletion, ensuring data is retained for as long as necessary—and automatically deleted when it’s no longer needed. Built into Microsoft 365, it enables businesses to apply consistent retention and deletion policies across email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and other cloud data sources.

With Purview Data Lifecycle Management, organizations can:

  • Address compliance and legal mandates through automated retention schedules.
  • Minimize risk by deleting outdated or unnecessary data that no longer serves a purpose.
  • Reduce storage overhead and improve system performance across Microsoft 365 environments.

What can you do with Purview Data Lifecycle Management?

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management brings together automation, classification, and records management to help your organization manage data with precision. Here’s how its core features work in practice:

Retention policies

Apply organization-wide rules that retain or delete content after a specified time, across email, Teams, SharePoint, and more.

Retention labels and records management

Mark specific files or emails for special handling—like legal records that must be immutable or documents that need approval before deletion.

Automated labeling

Use rules or machine learning classifiers to automatically tag and manage high-value or sensitive content at scale.

Learn more about Microsoft Purview Information Protection.

Audit trail and reporting

Generate evidence of compliance with built-in logging and visual dashboards that show how policies are applied and enforced.

Mailbox archiving and inactive mailboxes

Automatically move older emails into archive storage or preserve mailboxes of former employees without requiring active licenses.

Data import and connectors

Bring legacy or third-party data—like PST files or messages from other platforms—under policy control.

Do you want to find out more?

We can help you get the most out of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. Our consulting engagement includes a tailored roadmap for deployment, licensing guidance, and an in-depth assessment of your current environment. Whether you’re just starting or need to fine-tune existing policies, we’ll work with your team to build a strategy that supports compliance, improves data hygiene, and fits your business goals.

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How can Purview Data Lifecycle Management help your organization?

Synergy Technical textured background image for the Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management page.
A remote employee accesses files securely from the cloud while knowing that retention policies from Purview Data Lifecycle Management are quietly managing data lifecycle in the background. Even while on the go during lunch, a female employee can safely work from her mobile device knowing that her data is governed by Microsoft Purview’s automated retention and deletion policies.

Reduce risk and ensure compliance

Staying compliant with today’s complex data regulations—like GDPR, HIPAA, and industry-specific mandates—requires more than just good intentions. Purview Data Lifecycle Management helps you automate the retention of essential records and the timely deletion of data that’s no longer needed. It ensures your policies are enforced consistently, provides audit trails for accountability, and gives your compliance team the confidence to respond to regulatory inquiries or audits with clear evidence of defensible data handling.

A screenshot displays how easy it is to create custom retention labels within Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management, enabling organizations to define content lifespan by type or business need.

Control data storage and streamline operations

Not all data needs to live forever. Purview helps you take control of growing storage demands by identifying and automatically cleaning up outdated or unnecessary content—without interrupting your users’ workflow. Archiving inactive mailboxes, applying retention rules to shared files, and managing aging Teams content are just a few ways this solution keeps your Microsoft 365 environment lean, organized, and more cost-effective to maintain.

A female employee uses Microsoft 365 apps to stay productive while unified retention policies from Purview Data Lifecycle Management quietly govern the lifecycle of her content without disruption. Employees collaborate in Microsoft Teams while Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management enforces background retention policies that ensure messages and shared files are handled securely and compliantly. A team of employees works across SharePoint and OneDrive, unaware that Purview Data Lifecycle Management is automatically applying retention labels and managing data cleanup—so they can focus on their work without interruptions.

Unify governance across the Microsoft cloud

Instead of managing data policies in silos, Purview gives you a centralized approach to lifecycle management across Microsoft 365 apps and services. Whether it’s an executive’s mailbox, a project team’s SharePoint site, or organization-wide Teams conversations, you can apply the same set of intelligent, automated policies—making governance scalable and easier to manage. This unified oversight reduces complexity, strengthens policy enforcement, and helps your IT and compliance teams work in sync.

How we're different

Recognitions and certifications

Synergy Technical has been accredited with several partner recognitions.

Microsoft FastTrack Ready Partner

Microsoft FastTrack Ready Partner

FastTrack is a combination of resources, engineering expertise, and best practices that ensures you have the most efficient deployment and adoption possible.

Cloud Immersion Experience facilitators

Cloud Immersion Experience facilitators

As one of Microsoft's top CIE partners, we have experience showcasing the benefits of Microsoft productivity and security solutions.

Microsoft Cloud Solutions Partner

Microsoft Cloud Solutions Partner

Subject matter experts in Modern Work for Enterprise and SMB, cybersecurity architecture, identity and access management, information protection, and additional specializations.

Our proven experience

Our proven experience

  • Deployed over 20M seats of Office 365, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft EMS
  • Customers in all 50 states
  • Experience in 70+ countries
Synergy Technical textured background image for the Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management page.

Ready to get started?

Synergy Technical has a long history of delivering successful cloud and on-premises security solutions to customers. Contact us to learn best practices on how to successfully implement Data Lifecycle Management policies while meeting your organization's security requirements.

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