Published: 8 August 2026. Updated: 4 October 2026, after the retirement date. Source: Microsoft Tech Community: Microsoft Project Online is retiring - What you need to know
When did Microsoft Project Online retire and what happened to the data?
Project Online reached end of life on 30 September 2026, and access to the service and its data ended that day. Microsoft published no read-only grace period and no archive tier for the Project Web App site collections, so anything not exported beforehand should be treated as lost.
Microsoft Project Online reached end of life on 30 September 2026, and Microsoft's guidance was that the Project Web App (PWA) site collections went with it. For SharePoint admins, that means a specific set of site collections in the tenant should be treated as gone, whether they held active project data or years of untouched documents, and any that still open are a last chance to copy content out.
Retirement timeline
| Date | What changes |
|---|---|
| October 2025 | End of sale for standalone Project Online SKUs. New customers can no longer purchase Project Online as a standalone product. |
| April 2026 | Creation of new Project Web App sites blocked. Tenants with no active projects lose access to Project Online from this date. |
| 30 September 2026 | Full retirement. Project Online service access ended. Project data stopped being accessible, with no read-only window. |
Why this has direct SharePoint implications
Project Online was not a standalone cloud product sitting outside SharePoint. It ran on top of SharePoint Online and created SharePoint site collections: each PWA instance is a site collection that held schedules, resource plans, documents, and custom metadata, and consumed storage quota like any other SharePoint site.
Microsoft did not announce a read-only state for those site collections or a move into Microsoft 365 Archive. Admins of tenants that used Project Online may not know how many PWA sites exist, particularly where project managers provisioned them without IT involvement, so the first job now is to find out which ones your tenant still lists.
SharePoint Add-Ins deployed within Project Online were also subject to the SharePoint Add-In retirement, which ended on 2 April 2026, so custom add-in parts in PWA sites had already stopped working before the service itself retired.
For what did and did not survive the date, and the mechanics of getting data out of a site that still opens, including the per-user limitation in the Microsoft export script, see how to export Project Online data, and for where the work continues afterwards, the successor options compared.
What SharePoint admins can still do
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Find the PWA site collections your tenant still lists. In the SharePoint admin centre, open Active sites and look for URLs containing
/sites/pwa, or runGet-SPOSite -Limit Allin the SharePoint Online Management Shell and filter on the PWA template. The Active sites export also gives storage used and last activity for each one. - Check whether any of them still open. Project data (schedules, resources, tasks) was only reachable through the Project Online service, which has retired. The documents and lists inside a PWA site are ordinary SharePoint content, so if a site still opens, that part can still be copied.
- Copy out the documents you still need. Relocate files from any PWA document library that still opens to a permanent SharePoint Online team site. ShareMaster's Copy To / Move To does this in resumable batches without re-uploading through the browser.
- Move the work to a successor platform. Microsoft recommends Planner Premium for cloud-managed work and Project Server Subscription Edition for on-premises or hybrid requirements. If you exported project data before the date, both have migration guidance on Microsoft Learn.
- Tidy up what is left. Once nothing more can or needs to be copied, delete the PWA site collections the tenant still lists, so they stop appearing in site inventories and storage reports.
Successor options compared
| Option | Best fit | Key point |
|---|---|---|
| Planner Premium (formerly Project for the web) | Cloud-first teams already in Microsoft 365 | Included in some Microsoft 365 plans; no separate server infrastructure needed |
| Project Server Subscription Edition | Organisations needing on-premises or hybrid infrastructure | Requires Windows Server; full enterprise project management feature set |
| Microsoft Lists + Power Automate | Simple tracking scenarios that did not use advanced scheduling features | No dedicated project license required; limited compared to full project management tooling |
Sources: Microsoft Tech Community: Microsoft Project Online is retiring - What you need to know; Changes to Project Web App site creation effective April 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened to Project Web App sites in SharePoint when Project Online retired?
PWA sites are SharePoint site collections that Project Online provisioned. Microsoft said access to the service and its data ended on 30 September 2026 and has not said the PWA sites survive. If any PWA site collection still opens in your tenant, copy the documents and lists you need out of it now.
What replaces Microsoft Project Online in Microsoft 365?
Microsoft offers two successor paths: Planner Premium (cloud-only, formerly Project for the web) and Project Server Subscription Edition (on-premises or hybrid). The right choice depends on whether the organisation needs a cloud-managed or self-hosted platform and how complex the existing project structures are.
Can I still create new PWA sites in Project Online?
No. New Project Web App site creation was blocked from April 2026, and Microsoft stopped selling standalone Project Online SKUs to new customers from October 2025. Only existing tenants with active projects kept access past April 2026, and that ended when the service retired on 30 September 2026.