Summary
- Microsoft Purview service-side auto-labeling will expand to support legacy Office file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) stored in SharePoint and OneDrive.
- The new support applies to both simulation and enforcement modes, so existing sensitivity label policies can now evaluate these older file types.
- Organizations already using auto-labeling policies should review which policies and locations should include legacy Office files.
- Existing policies need a small edit and a rerun to restart the crawl before they can evaluate legacy Office files; newly created policies do not need this extra step.
Primary Service: Purview
Admin Impact: Medium
User Impact: Medium
Release Start: 30 Nov 2026
Release End: 30 Nov 2026
Services: Excel, OneDrive, PowerPoint, Purview, SharePoint, Word
Category: Stay informed
Tags: Admin Action, New Feature, User Adoption
History
10/29/2026 Item Added to Message Center
Microsoft Message
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: Does the change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed?
Answer: 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.
Question: Does the change include an admin control?
Answer: 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.