Pages are kept in a personal cupboard that belongs to the person who made them. When they leave, nobody gets the key unless IT hands it over.
Copilot Pages and Notebooks are saved in a storage space owned by the person who created them. When that person leaves, it's deleted on the same timetable as their OneDrive. Unlike OneDrive, nobody is given access automatically, so IT needs to hand it over as part of leaving.
Pages and Notebooks sit in a user-owned SharePoint Embedded container (application name "Loop", named "Pages" or "My workspace"), counted against SharePoint quota, 25 TB limit. On account deletion it follows the OneDrive retention and deletion lifecycle, without OneDrive's automatic manager delegation. Admins add a custodian or transfer principal ownership.
Where they're stored
Microsoft's admin documentation says each user has a single user-owned SharePoint Embedded container that holds their Copilot Pages, Copilot Notebooks and Loop My workspace content. In the SharePoint admin center, in PowerShell and in Purview audit data, that container always shows with the application name "Loop", and it may be named "Pages" or "My workspace" depending on which app created it first. Storage counts against the organisation's SharePoint quota, and Microsoft gives a 25 TB limit per container.
That's different from a team site. A page created for a team's decision still belongs to the person who created it.
What happens when someone leaves
Microsoft says the container follows the same deletion lifecycle as OneDrive. After the user account is deleted, it stays active for the configured retention period, then moves to a recycle bin, then is permanently deleted.
The difference is the handoff. When someone leaves, OneDrive automatically gives their manager access and emails them. Microsoft is explicit that "a user-owned container has no automatic delegation or notification, so the IT admin completes that one step manually." It also warns that, because the handoff isn't automatic, "it's easy to miss", and if nobody is given access before the retention period ends, the content is permanently deleted.
The two options
Microsoft describes two ways to handle a departing person's container.
The first works like OneDrive: add a custodian as an owner, usually the manager or a colleague, send them the container link, and let them copy what needs keeping before the container is deleted. Links to the original stop working once it's gone.
The second is to transfer the container permanently to a new principal owner. Microsoft notes this option isn't available for OneDrive.
Microsoft suggests larger organisations automate the access grant with PowerShell and the notification with Power Automate, and smaller ones add it to their leavers' checklist.
Why this matters for decisions
If a team uses Pages for decision briefs, those briefs sit in individual containers. When the author of a key brief leaves, the team can lose the record of why a decision was made, often months later when someone needs it.
A worked example
This scenario is illustrative. A project manager kept ten decision briefs as Copilot Pages over a year-long project. She leaves in March. The organisation's OneDrive retention period is set to 90 days, and nobody adds her container to the leavers' process. By July, when an auditor asks why a supplier was chosen, the container has been deleted.
With one extra step on the leavers' checklist, her manager would have been added as an owner in her last week and could have moved the briefs to the project's SharePoint site, or the container could have been transferred to her successor.
What I'd do
Add "Copilot Pages and Notebooks container" to the leavers' checklist next to OneDrive. For pages that record decisions, copy the final version into the team's own site or decision log when the decision is made, so nothing depends on one person's account. Microsoft also says you can add the container to a retention policy or export content with Purview or the Graph API before departure.
What I'm still checking
I haven't tested how shared links from other people's pages behave during the retention period, before deletion. Microsoft's guidance says links stop working after deletion, but it isn't clear to me whether collaborators keep access during the retention period without a custodian being added.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn, Overview of Copilot Pages and Copilot Notebooks storage, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Grant access to Copilot Pages, Copilot Notebooks, and Loop containers, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Summary of governance, lifecycle, and compliance capabilities for Copilot Pages and Copilot Notebooks, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Manage SharePoint Embedded containers for Copilot Notebooks, Copilot Pages, or Loop workspaces, accessed 11 October 2026.