Restore a Deleted File from OneDrive
If you have deleted a file from OneDrive by mistake, you can almost always get it back yourself.
Check the recycle bin
- Go to m365.cloud.microsoft/onedrive and sign in with your Council account.
- Select Recycle bin in the left-hand menu.
- Find your file, select the circle beside it, and choose Restore.
The file goes back to the folder it came from.
Not there? Check the second-stage recycle bin
If you emptied your recycle bin, or the file was deleted long enough ago to have been cleared out, there is a second place to look.
- In the recycle bin, scroll to the bottom of the page.
- Select Second-stage recycle bin.
- Find the file and select Restore.
Did you overwrite it rather than delete it?
If the file still exists but the contents are wrong — you saved over it, or someone else did — you want version history, not the recycle bin.
- Find the file in OneDrive.
- Right-click it and choose Version history.
- Select an earlier version to open it, then Restore to make it the current one.
Nothing is lost when you restore an older version. The current one is kept as a version too.
How long you have
You have 30 days to recover a deleted item from OneDrive.
If you cannot find it
Send us a message with:
- The file or folder name
- Roughly when it was deleted
- Which folder it was in
The sooner you tell us, the better the odds.