Restricted SharePoint Search Retiring Jan. 2027

Restricted SharePoint Search (RSS) in SharePoint Online will retire by Jan. 31, 2027. Starting July 31, 2026, new implementations of RSS will not be allowed. Organizations must transition to Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) in SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) or use another tool to manage content discovery for M365 Copilot. If a customer is not using RSS, no action is required.

However, transitioning to RCD may trigger licensing requirements. RSS is included with SharePoint Online licensing plans. SAM is licensed separately and requires either at least one M365 Copilot Premium license (or E7) or all SharePoint users to have a SAM P1 stand-alone plan.

RSS allows designating which SharePoint sites (up to 100) are accessible by M365 Copilot and by extension Microsoft Search (used by SharePoint). It was originally intended to be a temporary solution to address SharePoint content discovery risks when M365 Copilot first rolled out by limiting which SharePoint sites M365 Copilot could reference. However, with a limit of 100 sites and the impact to Microsoft Search, it is not a scalable solution and has since been superseded by SAM utilities, including RCD, or third-party products. There is no upgrade path from RSS to RCD.