Digital declutter: Removing old versions of files and deleted emails
29 Jul 2026
We are continuing to reduce unneccessary files and emails in the University's Microsoft 365 storage.
There are two activities taking place which you may like to know about; automatic file versioning in SharePoint and OneDrive, and removal of deleted emails.
Automatic file versioning in SharePoint and OneDrive
What’s changing and why
SharePoint and OneDrive automatically keep previous versions of your files. This protects you if something goes wrong and makes collaboration safer.
Modern Office applications also autosave frequently, which means files can quietly build up hundreds of versions over time. At the University, this is the single largest driver of storage growth, but for most files the older versions provide little practical benefit.
Microsoft offer automatic version history controls that removes older file versions while keeping recent and meaningful ones. We are enabling this behaviour across SharePoint and OneDrive.
For most people, this change will have little or no visible impact.
When is this happening?
The change has been scheduled for Tuesday 18 August 2026.
What does this mean in practice
Think about how a PowerPoint deck evolves.
You start with a rough draft, then refine slides, adjust wording, respond to comments, and rehearse for different audiences. Each small change is saved automatically. Over weeks or months, that single deck can build up hundreds of nearly identical versions, even though only a handful are ever useful to go back to.
Version history is meant to be a safety net, not a permanent archive of every tiny edit. Automatic versioning keeps recent versions in full and gradually reduces older ones over time, retaining sensible checkpoints rather than every interim save. After the first 30 days, periodic checkpoints are kept (hourly, then daily, then weekly) rather than every save.
Your recent work remains protected, and you can still roll back if something goes wrong.
What is not affected
SharePoint sites that have minor versions enabled will not have automatic versioning applied – version history will continue to be managed as it currently is.
Important note on recovery
When older versions are removed, they are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. Deleted versions do not go to the recycle bin.
To protect recent work, all versions from the last 30 days are always preserved.
If you have a specific version you need to preserve long-term, the safest approach is to save it as a separate file rather than relying on version history.
Do I need to do anything?
No action is required from most people. Your day-to-day work in Word, Excel and PowerPoint will continue as normal.
If you believe you have files that genuinely require extended version retention for audit or compliance reasons, please use Connect to log a ticket with IT Services.
Permanent removal of deleted emails
When you delete your University emails in Outlook, they go into a ‘Deleted items’ folder; however they are not permanently removed from the University’s storage. From Tuesday 18 August this will change, so that when you delete an email, it moves to the Deleted Items folder, where it will remain for three months and then be automatically purged. This gives you time to recover an email if you realise it was a mistake to delete it.
You can purge email from Deleted Items sooner than three months if you choose:
Emails can still be recovered for 14 days after they’re deleted from Deleted Items:
Emails that you no longer need in your inbox but that are needed for reference or evidential purposes in the future can be filed, rather than deleted. You could move the email to a folder within your Inbox or you could save it to a relevant location in OneDrive or SharePoint:
- Option 1: File the email in a folder in your mailbox
- Option 2: Save the email in OneDrive or SharePoint, by dragging and dropping emails into File Explorer, OneDrive or SharePoint on the web, or selecting an email and clicking 'File' then 'Save As' to save to your OneDrive.