How to Restore Deleted Microsoft 365 Teams and Groups

Introduction

Has your valuable Microsoft 365 business data been completely decimated, either due to ransomware, malicious deletion, or a technical failure?   The instructions below will help you restore an entire Exchange mailbox, SharePoint or OneDrive site, or set of Teams/Groups if they have been deleted from Microsoft.

Teams

Each of the deleted teams needs to be restored one at a time. If you need to restore a large number of teams, you can open a CloudAlly Support ticket to help with the restore process.

To restore a deleted Team:

1. First Step: Restore a Public Channel

1. • Click the Recovery element from the Navigation Panel. The Restore & Download page is displayed with all your active-backup account details.
   • Click the Microsoft Groups/Teams backup task from which you wish to recover the data. The Restore or download Microsoft Groups & Teams page is displayed.
   • Locate the Team (not the Group – that will come later) that you would like, to restore. Click the arrow under the Action column to navigate to the Restore or Download
   • Enter the appropriate date immediately before the Teams data was deleted, or simply click Continue without filling in the date fields to view all backups.
   • Locate the most recent Channel backup prior to the ransomware attack and select it. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, click Restore, and then OK.

• Check the Jobs page to determine when the restore is complete.
• Click the Homepage element from the Navigation Panel, and then click on the Teams backup task to return to the Teams backup Click the CloudAlly refresh icon on the top-right of the screen in order to display the newly restored Team. You will need this in the following steps.

2. Second Step: Restore the Teams Sub-Services

Perform the following steps for each of these Teams sub-services in this order:

1. Sites
2. Calendars
3. Conversations
4. Metadata – this will finalize the restore, by recovering the Members, Owners, and most importantly, the Team Name.

For each sub-service perform the following steps:

1. Click the Recovery element from the Navigation Panel, and then click the Microsoft Teams backup task from which you wish to recover the data.
2. Locate the most recent Team backup prior to the loss of your data. Click the arrow under the Action column to navigate to the Restore or Download
3. Locate the most recent Site, Calendar, Conversation, or Metadata (in that order) and select it. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click
4. Click the Restore To field and select the (Restored) channel.
5. For Sites, select the “Replace: Restore will overwrite existing live data” option. 
6. Click OK to complete the restore
7. Repeat these steps for the remaining sub-services.

Groups

Groups are created by Microsoft when the Teams are created. When you restored the Channel, both the Team and the Group were created at the same time. Before you begin, verify that the Group was indeed created in Microsoft.

Perform the following steps for each of these Group sub-services in this order:

1. Sites
2. Calendars
3. Conversations
4. Metadata – this will finalize the restore, by recovering the Members, Owners, and most importantly, the Group Name.

For each sub-service perform the following steps:

1. Click the Recovery element from the Navigation Panel, and then click the Microsoft Groups backup task from which you wish to recover the data.
2. Locate the most recent Group backup prior to the loss of your data. Click the arrow under the Action column to navigate to the Restore or Download
3. Locate the most recent Site, Calendar, Conversation, or Metadata (in that order) and select it. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click
4. Click the Restore To field, a select the (Restored) channel.
5. For Sites, select the “Replace: Restore will overwrite existing live data” option. 
6. Click OK to complete the restore
7. Repeat these steps for remaining sub-services.