How to Recover Deleted Data in Office 365

DataHelp Admin | Modified: 2018-04-19T10:59:49+05:30 | Office 365

In today’s arena, the Office 365 is considered as a secure platform to save and share the data online. It is one of the best services provided by Microsoft. Office 365 is a web-based application that is used by the professionals. Being an online application, a user can access the data from anywhere or any-time if they have an internet connection. MS O365 comes up with many services that includes SharePoint, Exchange online, Power BI, OneDrive, Yammer, etc. It is a subscription service, and the best thing is that users need to pay only for the services, they are utilizing. It also provides better data security, but, there are some situations when the data stored in Office 365 cloud gets deleted. From the business point of view, it would be a very terrible situation. Thus, how an enterprise can troubleshoot this type of problem?. Hence, after understanding this question, in this blog, we provide all the possible measures to recover deleted data from Office 365.

Why Data Loss Occur in Office 365?

It does not depend on the size of company or number of users, data loss can be catastrophic. Moreover, from a contact files to end-user data files, data loss can occur suddenly at any file. The most common reasons behind the data loss of Office 365 are mentioned below:

Is Your Data Secure in Office 365 account?

Being a cloud computing service, all the data will be saved on a cloud in Office 365. Many normal users or enterprises think that every deleted data have been backed up in the cloud platform themselves. But, this thought is not true. Even though Microsoft own backup O365 data, against any issue related to their own data servers. Microsoft does not promise to recover any accidental data loss, occur due to mishandling of retention tags configuration or policies. It means, if a user deletes any file accidentally, then a user will no longer able to get it back. Although, a user cannot lose any file from the Microsoft Office 365 server. Moreover, if the deleted data is still present, then a user can again avail the file on Office 365 application.

Methods to Recover Data From Microsoft Office 365

There are some recovery methods available in Office 365. By using this recovery option, a user can get back their data in its original form with full accuracy.

1: Office 365 has two folders i.e. Deleted Items and Recovered Items folder. These two folders allow a user to retrieve the email messages. Although, after deleting an email, a user can restore the messages within 14 days. Otherwise, after 14 days all the deleted messages permanently removed from the Office 365. In addition, the administrator has the power to increase the retention period from 14 days to 30 days. This recovery method is one of the best option to restore deleted Office 365 mailbox data. Because within fewer clicks, a user can get back its lost data with the original attributes.

2: The second approach is to use Archive option this option allow user to recover deleted items from the Recoverable Items folder in their archive mailbox. If a user enables archive feature of O365 on the main mailbox, the deleted messages can be archived. This archived messages can be restored as per the user need. In addition, the administrator can use Message Records Management (MRM) policies to a core mailbox. This policy allows the admin to increase retention period more than the 30 days.

3: Data items that deleted outside the retention period will not be viewed in the archived folder. To restore those files, a user needs to send a request call to Microsoft. Afterwards, Microsoft’s support team will restore the data files.

4: OneDrive for business has an option known as Restore OneDrive. It is a new feature that launched in 2018 by Microsoft. On a fundamental level, it restores all the deleted data items from the OneDrive. After the file deletion, a user can retrieve its data file within 30 days only. Afterwards, the deleted data can be permanently removed from the OneDrive for Business.

5: Recycle bin can stores all the deleted data files. If a user wants to recover its deleted file, then they can restore it from the trash bin. However, if the deleted file does not appear in a bin, then a user needs to send a request to Microsoft.

6: Contacts are saved in Exchange online in the Global Address list folder. These saved contacts automatically backed up by Microsoft as part of tenant administration. Although, a user cannot extract one deleted contact. To restore contact files, the admin has to import manually the Global Address List and keep the contacts from there. In a similar manner, for the calendar, the admin has to manually export Outlook PST data file.

Final Words

In this blog, we are trying to troubleshoot the data recovery issue in Office 365. Therefore, we have covered all the possible manual method in Microsoft Office 365. With the help of this solution, a normal user or an enterprise can recover the deleted data from Office 365.

About The Author

DataHelp Admin

An exuberant writer delivers content on different cloud discipline issues to reduce the bridge between a user and a technology. Generate technical write-ups to helps people to resolve technical glitches, which people encounter in their day-to-day life.