As part of the modernization of the Purview eDiscovery solution, Microsoft will simplify the content searches UX in February 2026 to remove features that are inappropriate for the way that content searches are intended to be used. The change is logical and reasonable because you should use a full eDiscovery case to access all the eDiscovery functionality.
Microsoft is making some important changes to Purview eDiscovery from May 26, 2025. The changes affect how content searches work and are likely to affect many Microsoft 365 tenants. Administrators and eDiscovery investigators will both have to master new ways of working with eDiscovery cases, searching for information, reviewing search results, and exporting what’s found. Changes to PowerShell cmdlets might affect scripts, so there’s lots to consider.
Microsoft has announced that they are replacing the user data search tool with Purview eDiscovery standard. The change will happen on 30 August 2023 and active user data search cases will be transferred automatically to eDiscovery standard at that point. The change makes sense because the user data search tool hasn’t been enhanced much since its inception. Anyway, user data search cases were simply a special form of eDiscovery case, and now they’re all the same.
The need to find SharePoint documents with sensitivity labels might arise during a tenant divestiture to decrypt the documents before the split. As it turns out, searches against the SharePoint InformationProtectionLabelId property is a good way to find the files. After that, the need arises to decrypt the documents, which is where Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (premium) might come in handy.