Comparison between the Teams archive and Teams compliance archive jobs

While Teams archive and Teams compliance jobs operate on a similar principle (archiving the content of Teams), they differ significantly in several key aspects. In the following table, we summarize the points of similarity and dissimilarity between the two jobs.
The most important difference, which we need to mention before the table, is that the Teams compliance job is a backup solution designed specifically for archiving deleted messages (and deleted channels) and their content within Microsoft Teams.
It is also important to mention that if a team has already been archived using the Teams archive job, it is not possible to re-archive it using the Teams compliance job, and vice versa. This will result in an error, and the job won't process anything.

Comparison between the Teams archive and Teams compliance archive jobs

Features and functions

Teams archive job

Teams compliance archive job

Report mode

The report mode is enabled in the Teams archive job.

The report mode is disabled in the Teams compliance archive job

Filtering settings

You can filter out the messages, channels, and files you wish to archive with the Teams archive job.

The filtering settings are disabled in the Teams compliance job.

Process all data/selected data

It is possible to select what would you like to archive: all or selected data.

Teams compliance archive job doesn’t provide the option to select specific items for processing; instead, it archives all data at once.

Convert archived files to shortcut

This option is enabled in the Teams archive job.

This option is disabled in the Teams compliance archive job.

Delete archived files

This option is enabled in the Teams archive job.

This option is disabled in the Teams compliance archive job.

Archive all or selected teams

This option is enabled in the Teams archive job.

This option is enabled in the Teams compliance archive job.

Archive deleted messages (and channels)

Teams archive job will return an empty body for deleted messages when archiving a team where some messages were deleted before the archiving process.

The Teams compliance archive job, by its nature, archives deleted messages and deleted channels.

Archive hosted contents

This option is enabled in the Teams archive job.

This option is enabled in the Teams compliance archive job.

Archive deleted hosted contents

Teams archive job will return an empty body for deleted hosted contents.

Known limitation: Teams compliance job cannot archive hosted contents in the deleted messages.

Archive messages from Private or Shared channels

This function is enabled in the Teams archive job.

Known limitation: messages from Private or Shared channels won’t be archived.