When important documents in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint get deleted, it can cause huge disruption to operations, create compliance risk and cost your team significant time.
The good news is that a recovery system is already built into your Microsoft environment.
In this guide, we show you how you can easily recover deleted documents in both SharePoint and Teams, so you never lose important files again.
How deleting files works in Microsoft SharePoint
When you delete a document – by selecting it and pressing Delete – it is not deleted forever, it’s stored in the Recycle Bin for 93 days.
With Cloud Design Box, you generally have two types of sites in SharePoint:
- Communication sites host organisation-wide resources – company policies, brand guidelines, resources shared across departments. These are typically accessible to a broad audience.
- Team sites are linked directly to Microsoft Teams and serve specific groups – a leadership team, a project team, or a department. These are where day-to-day collaboration happens.
The Recycle Bin functions identically in both, so regardless of where a document was deleted from, the recovery process is the same.
How to recover deleted files from your Recycle Bin in SharePoint
When any user with edit access deletes a document, it moves automatically to the SharePoint Recycle Bin. It’s not permanently lost – phew!
To recover it:
- Navigate to the relevant SharePoint site.
- Click the Settings cog (top right).
- Select Site contents.
- Click Recycle bin (top right of the page).
- Locate the document and click Restore.
The document returns immediately to its original location, with no data loss.
What happens if a document is deleted from the Recycle Bin in Microsoft SharePoint?
If someone deletes a document from the Recycle Bin itself, it doesn’t disappear entirely. It moves to a second-stage Recycle Bin, which acts as a final backstop before permanent deletion.
Access to this second stage is restricted to SharePoint site owners and IT administrators. This is a deliberate security measure, but it means your organisation needs at least one person with both the permissions and the knowledge to use it.
How to recover deleted files in Microsoft Teams
Many staff never open SharePoint directly – they work entirely within Microsoft Teams. This creates a blind spot: when a document is deleted from a Teams channel, it goes to the SharePoint Recycle Bin in the background, but Teams gives no indication of this or how to get back there.
To recover a document deleted from within Teams:
- Go to the relevant Teams channel.
- Open the Shared tab.
- Click the three dots (…) at the top.
- Select Open in SharePoint.
- Follow the SharePoint recovery steps above.
How Cloud Design Box can support you
We design SharePoint and Teams environments that support governance, security and compliance. Then we train and empower your staff to confidently find and use the right content.
Ready to make document management simple and reliable?
Contact Cloud Design Box to learn how we can help build a quality-driven, secure and user-friendly Microsoft 365 environment.
