Recovering a Deleted File or Email in Microsoft 365

Files and emails in Microsoft 365 are not permanently deleted immediately — they go through a recovery period, giving users and admins a window to restore them. For deleted OneDrive/SharePoint files: click the Recycle Bin in OneDrive or SharePoint (left sidebar). Items are held for 93 days. Select the file and click Restore. If the file was already removed from the first-stage Recycle Bin, check the Second-stage Recycle Bin (bottom of the Recycle Bin page) — items are held here for the remainder of the 93-day period. For deleted emails in Outlook: deleted emails go to the Deleted Items folder. If removed from there, right-click Deleted Items > Recover Deleted Items — this accesses the server-side recovery for items deleted within the retention period (default 14–30 days). Admins can perform a compliance search in the Microsoft Purview portal to find and restore emails beyond the normal recovery window. For critical business emails, enable Litigation Hold or retention policies to ensure nothing is permanently deleted.