Microsoft Teams now has around 250 million monthly active users. That’s a lot of communication and collaboration. With plenty of file usage.
Naturally, amid all that activity there will be times when you delete files. Sometimes this will be deliberate. Other times it’ll be by accident.
There will also be times when you need those files. You’ll search for them, only to be met with a blank screen. You might retype the search query. Still nothing. Then, perhaps after a period spent staring into space, it’ll start dawning on you. A slow-moving yet inescapable realization. “Oh no, I must have deleted the file – how can I get it back?”
The good news is that it’s possible to recover deleted files from Microsoft Teams. This how-to video and extended blog will show you.
Recovering a file involves a mixture of navigation, direction, and sometimes retracing your steps. It’s a journey. And like any journey, you need to know where you’re starting from.
When a journey involves recovering files from Microsoft Teams, the journey actually starts in SharePoint.
Every time you create a team in Microsoft Teams, this automatically creates a new SharePoint site. This is where all files relating to the team are saved.
As the team owner and person who created the site, you can add people in your organization. Depending on your security settings, you can also add people external to the organization as guests. These added people become your team members. Team owners and members can then access the files in Teams and the SharePoint site.
Within Teams you can see a General channel.
Within the channel, you can see three default tabs. Posts, Files, and Wiki.
Click on Files and you can see all the files that relate to the Teams channel. These are the files that are stored in SharePoint.
Click on the three dots next to a file and you’ll see the option to delete.
This will delete the files from Teams – but they’re still in SharePoint. That’s because the SharePoint site also has a Recycle Bin. This is where your deleted files go to.
The maximum length of time they stay there is 93 days. So you have around three months.
Click Settings>Site contents.
You should see the Recycle Bin listed among the Site Contents. If it doesn’t appear, contact your Administrator and ask if it’s been disabled.
Head to the SharePoint site where the file has been deleted from.
Within Teams you can go:
Files>More>Open in SharePoint
In the Quick Launch bar navigation, click Recycle Bin.
You’ll then see the files that have been deleted from Teams, and files deleted from anywhere else within the same SharePoint channel.
Click next to the files you wish to recover.
Click Restore.
Congratulations! The file has been restored to the same location it was before.
What’s more, it retains all its metadata to keep your taxonomy intact.
There are a few reasons why a file can’t be restored. Here are a few of the more common issues, and how to solve them:
Permissions decide whether you can recover deleted files. However, default permissions mean that:
As you can see, Microsoft offers different file controls and recovery methods. Naturally, this takes time to manually configure. What’s more, you’ll also spend time supporting users who have either deleted or want to delete files.
To save you time and free up resources, use Syskit Point. It gives you a full overview of Teams, SharePoint, and Office 365. And its advanced file management solves the risks of accidental or malicious file deletion or sharing.
You can manage access to files, control who can create workspaces, track user activity, and detect unauthorized changes. All from a single user interface. It’s your end-to-end solution for advanced security and governance!