How do you recover deleted files from OneDrive?

How to recover permanently deleted files from OneDrive?

How you can use SysCloud to recover permanently deleted files from OneDrive

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Recovering permanently deleted files from OneDrive for Business can be challenging without proper backup in place. 

When a file is deleted, it is moved to the first-stage Recycle Bin, where it remains for 93 days unless the administrator has modified the retention settings. During this period, users can restore deleted files directly from this Recycle Bin.

If a file is deleted from the first-stage Recycle Bin, it moves to the second-stage Recycle Bin where it remains for the remainder of the 93-day retention period unless permanently deleted by a site collection administrator.

After the 93-day retention period, recovery options become limited. Advanced recovery might require contacting Microsoft Support, especially for restoring data beyond the Recycle Bin's retention period. 

What is the solution?

SysCloud offers automated, continuous backups for OneDrive, ensuring all files are securely backed up and easily recoverable, even after permanent deletion from the Recycle Bin.

OneDrive Data Recovery Wizard

OneDrive is one of the most popular online cloud storage services. Microsoft 365 statistics show that Microsoft 365 has nearly 345 million paid subscribers and an estimated 321 million active users. With so many people using OneDrive to store their business data, data loss due to user error becomes inevitable. Hence, it is crucial to know effective ways to recover accidentally deleted OneDrive files. 

Microsoft 365 provides features that you can leverage to recover data or preserve data. Here is a diagram that illustrates all the data recovery options for deleted OneDrive files.  

If the data has been deleted from OneDrive for less than 30 days, you can restore it from the recycle bin 

Follow these steps to recover deleted OneDrive files from the recycle bin:

Step 1: Go to the OneDrive website and log in to your account. 

Step 2: Navigate to the Recycle Bin folder, on the left side of the screen. 

Step 3: Select the files that are to be recovered and click Restore on top of the screen.

This will restore the files to their original location. 

Once you delete files from the recycle bin, they will automatically go to the second-stage recycle bin. Here the files will be retained for another 30 days. To recover files from Second-stage Recycle Bin: 

Step 1: Navigate to the ‘Recycle bin’. 

Step 2: Click on the ‘Second-stage recycle bin’ option.

Step 3: After that, select the files that need to be recovered and click on the ‘Restore’ button placed at the top of the screen. All the selected files will be restored to their original location.

The files in the second-stage recycle bin will also be automatically deleted after 30 days. However, these files can still be recovered within 30 days after their deletion from the third-stage recycle bin using the – ‘undo’ option. 

This feature is useful in situations like a server crash, accidental deletion, or any malicious activity.

Follow these steps to recover OneDrive files deleted from the second-stage recycle bin: 

Step 1: Navigate to the Settings icon at the top right corner of your OneDrive homepage. 

Step 2: After that, select the ‘Restore your OneDrive’ option from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: On the next page, select the desired time period. 

Step 4: After that, select the file that has to be recovered and click on the ‘Restore’ button at the top of the screen. 

Once a file is deleted from both the first-stage and second-stage Recycle Bins in OneDrive, and more than 93 days have passed since it was originally deleted, the file is permanently removed. At this point, it cannot be recovered unless a retention policy or legal hold was in place before the deletion.

Files stored in OneDrive can be retained if a retention policy or a retention label is applied. Retention policy is used to assign the same retention setting for content at a site or mailbox level. Retention label is used to assign retention settings at an item level (to a particular document, file, or an email). The retained content is stored in a Preservation Hold Library. If the content is modified or deleted during the retention period, a copy of the original content is created and stored in the Preservation Hold Library. After the retention period expires, data is permanently deleted with no recovery option. A Litigation Hold is required for indefinite legal data preservation. 

To know when to use retention policy and label and how to create them, click here. 

eDiscovery in Microsoft 365 preserves and exports electronic data which can be presented as potential evidence in legal proceedings. Data of interest can be placed on a legal hold indefinitely (hence, this is technically not a recovery). Once a hold is placed, the data cannot be deleted or modified, and the data will be only accessible to the administrator.  

The native eDiscovery feature of Microsoft 365 helps in identifying and preserving the data, but it does not serve as a backup solution. It is only meant for archiving and retrieving business data.  

Learn more about Microsoft 365 eDiscovery features here.

To ensure data protection and continuity, Microsoft 365 Backup automatically backs up OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange Online data at regular intervals. Microsoft 365 Backup allows you to restore OneDrive files and folders to a previously known good state using point-in-time recovery. 

While Microsoft 365 Backup enhances the native recovery experience for OneDrive, there are two critical limitations to Microsoft 365 Backup.

The 3-2-1 backup strategy is a time-tested best practice for data protection that helps ensure your data is safe from loss due to accidental deletion, hardware failure, cyberattacks, or natural disasters. The 3-2-1 backup strategy is recommended by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). This strategy advocates for:

Keep at least three copies of your data, which is the original data and the 2 backups for the original data.

Store your backups on at least two different types of media.

Keep at least one copy of the data offsite (in a different physical location) to protect against disasters like fire, flood, or theft.

Currently, it is not possible to restore individual files or folders from a specific point in time using Microsoft 365 Backup for OneDrive and Sharepoint.

For complete protection, you may still need to complement Microsoft 365 Backup with third-party backup solutions. 

Third-party backup solutions like SysCloud, offer a convenient way to backup and restore OneDrive files.  

Tools like SysCloud offer a number of benefits in managing OneDrive data.

Restore permanently deleted OneDrive files with single click.

Directly restore data back to its previous location with all sharing permissions and folder structure still intact. 

Retain safe copies of organizational data even after events like employee exits and account deletions; saving license costs. 

Easily monitor and track the health of your backup, and restore requests.

Step 1: Log in to SysCloud’s application using your Microsoft Office 365 admin credentials.

Step 2: After selecting the Onedrive icon, click on “Archives” and User data is available for “Restore”.

Step 3: Select the user whose OneDrive data needs to be restored by clicking the checkbox next to the user account. Click “Restore.”

Note: If you need to restore specific files and folders, click on the user account to go to the OneDrive archives for that user. You can either perform a file-level restore or a folder-level restore. Select one or more files or folders and click “Restore.”

Step 4: In the restore pop-up box, select the snapshot date and time, and select an account to restore the data to.

Note: By default, data is restored to the same account from which it was deleted. To perform a cross-user restore, you can select a different account of the same domain. 

Step 5: Click the checkbox next to "Restore all permissions” if you want to restore the data with all its sharing permissions intact. If this option is unchecked, the collaborators of the original file will not have access to the restored file. 

Step 6: Click the checkbox next to the option “Create a new folder for restore” if you wish to restore the data to a new folder. If this option is unchecked, the data will be restored to its original location.  

Step 7: Add comments to be shown in the restore report (optional) and click on “Restore” to confirm the restore.

Top 3 Ways to Backup OneDrive for Business: To know how to backup OneDrive, click here 

A Complete Guide to Microsoft SharePoint Data Retention: To know more about retention in SharePoint and OneDrive, click here 

A Primer to Microsoft 365 eDiscovery Solutions: To know more about eDiscovery solutions offered by Microsoft 365, click here 

A Definitive Guide to Using OneDrive Shared Folder and Files: To know how to create a shared folder and share them with your team for the business, click here 

SysCloud vs. Microsoft 365 Native Retention: To know more about the data retention gaps for all critical Microsoft 365 apps across various subscription plans, click here.

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How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files from OneDrive for Business

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Wondering how to recover permanently deleted OneDrive files? Find all the different ways in which you can recover them with or without having a backup!

An in-depth article on how admins can recover permanently deleted OneDrive files.

How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files from OneDrive for Business

How do you recover deleted files from OneDrive?

Restore deleted OneDrive files from the Recycle Bin (first-stage)

Recover OneDrive files deleted from the Recycle Bin (second-stage)

Recover OneDrive files deleted from the Recycle Bin (third-stage)

Recover permanently deleted files from OneDrive

Using OneDrive retention policies

Recover OneDrive data using eDiscovery

Microsoft 365 native backup tool

Doesn't follow the 3-2-1 backup standard

Lack of file-level granularity for OneDrive and SharePoint (Shared Drive)

Benefits of using third-party tools

How you can use SysCloud to recover permanently deleted files from OneDrive