User Guide: Remove labels and protection from files and emails that have been labeled by Azure Information Protection or protected by Rights Management

  • Article

Applies to: Active Directory Rights Management Services, Azure Information Protection, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8

Relevant for: Azure Information Protection classic client for Windows. For the unified labeling client, see the unified labeling client user guide.

Note

To provide a unified and streamlined customer experience, we are sunsetting the Azure Information Protection classic client and Label Management in the Azure Portal as of March 31, 2021. No further support is provided for the classic client and maintenance versions will no longer be released.

  • The classic client will be fully retired, and will stop functioning, on March 31, 2022.
  • As of March 18, 2022, we are also sunsetting the AIP audit log and analytics, with a full retirement date of September 31, 2022.

For more information, see Removed and retired services.

When the Azure Information Protection client is installed on your computer, you can remove classification labels and protection from files and emails.

When the label that you remove is configured to apply protection, this action also removes protection from the file. You might be prompted to record why you are removing the label.

Important

You must be the owner of the file to remove protection, or been granted permissions to remove protection (the Rights Management permission of Export or Full Control).

If you want to choose a different label or a different set of protection settings, you do not need to remove the label or protection. Instead, choose a new label and if necessary, you can define custom permissions if your administrator allows this configuration.

You can remove labels and protection from Office documents and emails when you are creating or editing them from within your Office desktop apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook.

You can also remove labels and protection by using File Explorer, which supports additional file types and is a convenient way to remove labels and protection from multiple files at once.

Using Office apps to remove labels and protection from documents and emails

On the Information Protection bar, click the Delete Label icon:

Azure Information Protection bar - Delete Label

If the Delete Label icon is not immediately available, first click the Edit Label icon:

Azure Information Protection bar - Edit Label

If you still do not see the Delete Label icon, your administrator does not allow you to use this option because all documents and email must have a label.

Note

If you don't see this Information Protection bar in your Office apps:

  • If you see a Protect button on the ribbon: Select Protect, and then select Show Bar.

  • You might not have the Azure Information Protection client installed, or the client is running in protection-only mode.

Using File Explorer to remove labels and protection from files

When you use File Explorer, you can quickly remove labels and protection from a single file, multiple files, or a folder. When you select a folder, all the files in that folder and any subfolders it has are automatically selected.

  1. In File Explorer, select your file, multiple files, or a folder. Right-click, and select Classify and protect.

  2. To remove a label: In the Classify and protect - Azure Information Protection dialog box, click Delete Label. If the label was configured to apply protection, that protection is automatically removed.

  3. To remove custom protection from a single file: In the Classify and protect - Azure Information Protection dialog box, clear the Protect with custom permissions option.

    If you do not see the Protect with custom permissions option, your administrator does not allow you to use this option.

  4. To remove custom protection from multiple files: In the Classify and protect - Azure Information Protection dialog box, click Remove custom permissions.

    If you do not see the Remove custom permissions option, your administrator does not allow you to use this option.

  5. Click Apply and wait for the Work finished message to see the results. Then click Close.

Other instructions

More how-to instructions from the Azure Information Protection user guide:

Additional information for administrators

For configuration instructions to enable the policy setting Make the custom permissions option available to users, see Configuring the Azure Information Protection policy settings.

Other configuration instructions: Configuring the Azure Information Protection policy.