If you delete a file by mistake, you can usually get it back yourself. Deleted files go to a recycle bin first, and work accounts keep them for 93 days unless your company has changed that. Act as soon as you notice, because the longer you wait the harder it can get.
What you’ll need
- your work email address and password
- the name of the file, or roughly when you deleted it
If the file was in your own OneDrive
- Go to onedrive.com and sign in with your work email address.
- In the menu on the left, select Recycle bin.
- Find the file. If you can’t see it, try the search box, or sort by the date deleted.
- Point to the file and tick the circle next to its name.
- Select Restore at the top.
The file goes back to the folder it was deleted from. Items you’ve deleted from the recycle bin as well can’t be brought back this way.
If the file was in a shared SharePoint or Teams library
- Open the SharePoint site, or the Files tab in the Teams channel and select Open in SharePoint.
- In the menu on the left, select Recycle bin. On some sites you’ll find it under Site contents instead.
- Tick the circle next to the file and select Restore.
You can only see and restore items you deleted yourself. If the file was deleted by a colleague, ask them to restore it, or email us.
If it isn’t in the recycle bin
- Someone else deleted it, or it was emptied from the first bin. Email us. A site owner or administrator can look in a second recycle bin, and items stay there for the rest of the 93 days.
- The file is still there but the contents are wrong. Right-click the file and look for Version history. You may be able to restore an older version. If you’re not sure, email us before you change anything.
- A whole folder or lots of files went missing. Stop working in that folder and email us straight away, so we can restore them in one go.
Stopping it happening again
- Check what you’ve selected before you press Delete.
- Keep files in OneDrive or SharePoint rather than only on your computer, so there’s always a recycle bin to fall back on.