hide/disable the Recent Activity in the details pane
Implement a configurable switch to hide/disable the Recent Activity in the details pane. Should be configurable at the user, library or tenant level.
Users find it annoying when the details pane keeps refreshing as other users update a list item or document; it makes the details pane constantly refresh and appears to "flicker" causing a poor user experience.

33 comments
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Jonathan Elwell commented
I just ran into this today, a client had users seeing activity in folders they don't have access to - even though they couldn't access the document itself, being able to see the document name is a major data access issue
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Anonymous commented
not having the ability to hide recent activity surely is a breach of GDPR. I can see what documents the MD is working on, and thats never a good thing
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Anonymous commented
this has to be an option - how its not seen as a breach of privacy i do not know...
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anonymus commented
Please give me the possibility to turn off the activity pane and remove alle the data that is mentioned in it.
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Jon Zaid commented
The details pane should be able to be hidden!!
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Anonymous commented
I wrote an app using sharepoint backend. Status of the record should always be updated by the system (flows) and every change is timestamped with datetime and who did it. Users are circumventing this by opening the details pane and changing the values. I cant enforce compliance
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rosie richmond commented
If you mean the Activity web part on the modern page, you can easily remove it from the page. Click “Edit” to edit the page > click the remove button to remove the webpart > publish the page to save the changes.
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David commented
This seems like a simple fix. Does Microsoft not know how to turn this off? I thought Microsoft listened to their customers.
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Anonymous commented
Please implement an option to disable this, we have patient data and other sensitive internal information, which filenames shouldn't be displayed to all people in the organization that are able to access Sharepoint.
The workaround to completely remove a document library from search (as pointed out here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_sharepoint/how-to-hide-sharepoint-online-activity-in-home/1ab2a702-36bd-4d4c-a5fd-0486dd8a0aba) is not a proper solution.
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Amey Mulay commented
I concur what Neil stated !
This is a security concern & we should be able to toggle it as & when required.
As it defeats the purpose of providing secured access.Regards,
AMEY -
Martin C commented
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Anonymous commented
This is quite pathetic to still not have a solution, please fix it.
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Anonymous commented
The activity module can still be seen within the document library's details pane. The ability to turn this feature off across the site should be possible. I understand why its there but also understand the need to have the option to disable.
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Anonymous commented
This link will show you how to delete the activity module.
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Wayne commented
"Recent Activity" is a GDPR concern for Business and Education environments. Microsoft must implement an option to turn this off.
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Debbie Farren commented
As an HR Manager, I work with confidential employee information. I do not think their private (Social Security #'s, etc.) information should pop up on a dashboard for anyone to view (walking by, etc.) I am not comfortable with this at all.
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Joe Albe commented
This is a terrible "feature" I do NOT want everyone in the company seeing what I am doing in the shared sites. Please allow this to be turned off. It's unthinkable that this is not an option since the product was released.
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Asif Ahamed commented
This feature should be available for sharepoint admin so that they can manage it if required as per their organization policy.
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Evans IT commented
"Recent Activity" is a security concern for business environments. It should be off by default.
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Alex Stark commented
i'm requesting ability to manipulate what users see on Recent Activity to remove specific files, because there was a virus that we wanted to get rid of (email with attachment that was posted also on the sharepoint, and so it still posed a continued risk)