How to Delete Copilot Chat History (And Is It Really Gone?)

The Microsoft 365 Copilot Cleanup Guide: Part 1

If you've been using Microsoft 365 Copilot regularly, you've probably accumulated quite a collection of conversations. Some are useful, some are experiments, and others contain questions you asked once and never need to see again.

Fortunately, Microsoft lets you delete individual conversations or request deletion of your entire Copilot activity history. But before you start clearing everything out, there's an important distinction between deleting a conversation from your view and removing information retained by your organization.

Here's how it works for Microsoft 365 Copilot using a work or school account.

1. Delete an Individual Copilot Chat

If you only want to remove a particular conversation, you can delete it directly from your chat history.

1. Open Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and sign in.

2. Find Chats in the left navigation.

3. Locate the conversation you want to remove.

4. Select More options (⋯) beside the conversation.

5. Click Delete and confirm if prompted.

The conversation disappears from your chat history, including the prompts you entered and Copilot's responses. There's no standard Undo option, so save anything important before deleting it.

Deleting a chat doesn't automatically delete documents you created using Copilot, saved prompts, Copilot Pages, Notebooks, or separately stored files.

2. Delete Your Entire Copilot Activity History

If you'd rather start fresh, Microsoft provides an account-level option to request deletion of your Copilot activity history.

1. Open Microsoft My Account and sign in with your work or school account.

2. Navigate to Data and Privacy → Data options.

3. Find Copilot activity history and select Delete.

4. Check Microsoft Copilot in the confirmation window.

5. Select Delete to submit your request.

This covers Copilot interaction history across supported Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Loop, and Copilot Chat. You cannot use this option to clear only one of those applications.

Deletion isn't necessarily immediate. Microsoft notes that processing may take time, and an application that's already open may continue displaying previous activity until you close and reopen it.

3. Is Your Deleted Copilot History Really Gone?

Here's where things get a little more complicated.

Deleting a conversation from Copilot doesn't necessarily mean every organizational record of that interaction is immediately destroyed.

Microsoft 365 uses compliance systems such as Microsoft Purview to manage retention and eDiscovery. Depending on your employer's configuration, deleted interactions may remain available to authorized compliance personnel until applicable retention periods expire.

In other words, clearing your visible chat history isn't a way to bypass workplace retention policies.

And don't confuse chat deletion with deleting other Copilot content. Saved documents, Pages, Notebooks, custom instructions, and agent configurations may need to be managed separately.

4. What About Copilot's Memory?

Copilot can use information from previous conversations to personalize future responses. However, saved memories and chat history are not necessarily the same thing.

Deleting a conversation doesn't automatically remove every saved memory associated with it. If you want to control what Copilot remembers, review Chat settings → Personalization, including saved memories and chat-history personalization settings where available.

We'll explore those controls separately in this series.

The Bottom Line

Microsoft 365 Copilot gives you two straightforward ways to manage conversation history: delete individual chats or request deletion of your complete Copilot activity history.

Just remember that deleted conversations, saved content, personalized memories, and organizational compliance records aren't all governed by the same rules.

And if you're wondering whether your employer can still access deleted Copilot conversations, that's exactly what we'll tackle in Part 2.

Because apparently, deleting something and having it actually disappear are two entirely different adventures.

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