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How can you clear your MS teams approvals list?

Sophie 20 Reputation points
2026-05-29T01:34:14.6566667+00:00

Hello, is there a way to periodically clear either all or a selection of the received approvals in MS teams?

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Other
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Sophie N 15,145 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
2026-05-29T02:20:39.1033333+00:00

Dear @Sophie,

I completely understand how frustrating it can be when a workspace gets cluttered with old, completed tasks, and I know how much easier it is to stay productive when you can clear out the noise. I truly wish I could tell you there is a quick "delete" button for this, but I want to be completely honest and transparent with you regarding how the system currently works.

To address the core issue directly, there is currently no built-in feature in Microsoft Teams to delete, clear, or bulk-hide completed approval history from your list.

Because the Approvals app is tied to Microsoft Power Automate and acts as an official audit trail, these records are securely stored within Microsoft Dataverse for compliance reasons. Consequently, standard users cannot purge this history.

I found a similar post on the Power Platform community forum explaining your problem, hopefully it will be helpful to you: Delete approvals (MS Teams / Powerautomate) (I hope you understand that, as this article was written by other members, it adheres to the original information and language of the post)

I know this isn't the ideal solution you were hoping for, but to help make your daily workflow smoother right now, I highly recommend using the built-in filtering tools to instantly clear the clutter from your view:

  • Filter by Status: Click the filter icon in the top right of your Approvals app and select Requested. This will instantly hide all past completed approvals, leaving you with a clean list of only the items that need your immediate attention.
  • Cancel Pending Requests: If you have pending requests that you created but no longer need, you can go to your Sent tab, open the specific request, and click Cancel approval to remove it from the active queue.

Microsoft relies heavily on user experiences to shape future updates. Since the ability to hide or clear completed approvals is highly requested, I strongly encourage you to share your feedback directly with the product team. You can do this inside Teams by clicking the Help icon in the bottom-left corner and selecting Give feedback or raise direct in feedback portal. Leaving your vote there helps prioritize this feature for future rollouts.

Please note that as community moderators, I cannot change product design, but we can guide you to the right channel, so your feedback reaches the engineering team.

I sincerely appreciate your input and your patience as Teams continues to evolve. Thank you for helping us make the product better for all users. I hope these workarounds help ease the clutter in your view. Please let me know if you need any help navigating the filters or if you have further questions!

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  1. AI answer

    2026-05-29T01:34:24.4933333+00:00

    There is no option in the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams to bulk-clear or periodically auto-clear the list of received approvals.

    What can be done from the Teams Approvals app and related experiences:

    1. View and act on approvals
      • In the Approvals app, the Received and Sent views show all approvals sent or received in the organization’s default tenant, including those created via Power Automate, chat, channels, and lists.
      • Approvals can be Approved or Rejected from the app or from the approval dialog in SharePoint lists and document libraries.
    2. Cancel requests that were sent
      • From the Sent tab in the Approvals app, in‑progress approvals that were created can be opened and Cancel can be selected. Only approvals that are still in progress can be canceled.
      • For approvals on SharePoint list items/files, the requester can also Cancel request from the approval details dialog.
    3. Retention and cleanup (admin-controlled)
      • Approvals data is stored in Microsoft Dataverse in the default environment. Admins can configure Dataverse retention policies to control how long approval data is retained. This is the supported way to systematically remove old approvals from the underlying data store rather than manually clearing the list in the client.
    4. Auditing and history
      • Even when approvals are canceled or completed, their history is still visible through the Approvals app and via auditing in Microsoft Purview, subject to any retention policies configured by admins.

    There is no user-facing feature to:

    • Bulk-delete or hide selected approvals from the Approvals app list, or
    • Schedule periodic automatic clearing of the approvals list at the client level.

    To reduce what appears in the list over time, an organization’s admin can:

    • Configure Dataverse long-term data retention policies for the approval tables so older approvals are automatically removed according to organizational policy.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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