MC1530948 - Microsoft Purview | Information Protection: Auto-labeling support for legacy Microsoft Office file formats
Microsoft 365 Message Center announcement MC1530948.
MS Message Center's Summary
Microsoft Purview is extending service side auto labeling to include legacy Office file formats in SharePoint and OneDrive beginning in November 2026. While new policies apply automatically, you must make a minor edit and rerun your existing policies to evaluate legacy files. You should review current auto labeling rules and prepare to update them to ensure comprehensive compliance coverage across older document types.
- Administrator impact
- Administrators must edit and rerun existing auto labeling policies if they wish to include legacy file formats.
- End user impact
- Legacy Office files stored in SharePoint and OneDrive will now receive automated sensitivity labels according to organizational policies.
- Importance
- 4/10: This update requires administrative action to update existing policies for full coverage but carries low risk.
Auto labeling policies in Microsoft Purview
Automatically apply a sensitivity label to Microsoft 365 data
Microsoft Summary
Microsoft Purview auto-labeling will support legacy Office files (.doc, .xls, .ppt) in SharePoint and OneDrive starting November 2026. Existing policies need a minor edit and rerun to include these formats. New policies support them automatically. This affects organizations using Purview auto-labeling for these platforms.
- Message Center ID
- MC1530948
- Category
- stay Informed
- Severity
- normal
- Services
- Microsoft 365 suite, Microsoft Purview
- Tags
- New feature, User impact, Admin impact
- Roadmap ID
- 574363
- Platforms
- Web
- Published
- 2026-10-29
- Last updated
- 2026-10-29
- Expires
- 2026-12-27
[What and why] Microsoft Purview service-side auto-labeling is adding support for legacy Microsoft Office file formats, including Word (.doc), Excel (.xls), and PowerPoint (.ppt). Organizations can automatically evaluate and apply sensitivity labels to these files in SharePoint and OneDrive. These legacy file formats will be supported in both simulation and enforcement. [Rollout schedule] Public Preview: Beginning in early November 2026 and expected to complete by mid-November 2026 General Availability: Beginning in late November 2026 and expected to complete by late November 2026 [Impact on your organization] Who is affected Organizations using Microsoft Purview service-side auto-labeling policies for files stored in SharePoint and OneDrive Platforms and services Microsoft Purview SharePoint OneDrive Microsoft Word (.doc) Microsoft Excel (.xls) Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) What will happen Service-side auto-labeling will support legacy Word (.doc), Excel (.xls), and PowerPoint (.ppt) files stored in SharePoint and OneDrive. New auto-labeling policies will automatically support these file formats. Existing auto-labeling policies require a small policy edit and another policy run to restart the crawl and evaluate legacy Office files. For example, an admin can add or remove a comment in the policy, save the change, and then run the policy again. These file formats will be supported in both simulation and enforcement. [Action required and recommendations] If you want existing auto-labeling policies to evaluate legacy Office files: Review your sensitivity labels and auto-labeling policies, including the SharePoint and OneDrive locations in scope. Identify the policies for which you want to extend coverage to legacy Office files. Make a small edit to each existing policy, such as adding or removing a policy comment, and save the change. Run the policy again to restart the crawl so that it can evaluate the newly supported file formats. Before enabling a new or updated policy, run it in simulation mode and review the results to confirm that it identifies the intended content. New policies do not require the additional edit and policy run. Learn more Auto-labeling policies | Microsoft Purview Automatically apply a sensitivity label to Microsoft 365 data | Microsoft Learn [Compliance considerations] Question Answer Does the change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed? Yes. The change expands the files that auto-labeling policies can evaluate and label to include legacy .doc , .xls , and .ppt files in SharePoint and OneDrive, according to the request. Does the change include an admin control? Yes. Admins manage the capability through Microsoft Purview auto-labeling policies. Microsoft Learn identifies the Microsoft Purview portal's Information Protection > Policies > Auto-labeling policies surface for service-side auto-labeling.