Restore a Microsoft 365 team

This article explains how to restore a Microsoft 365 team and what to expect after the restore completes.

Ways to restore a team

To restore a team, you can restore the entire group associated with it. This restores all team and group data.

To restore only team data, select Channels (restores channels with conversations and tabs) and Files (restores message attachments and other files).

Connector-level restore

You can restore a team from the connector level. This method lets you choose how duplicate items are handled.

To restore a team, select the group associated with the team, then select Channels and Files.

Note: To also restore the team site and notebook, select SharePoint.

Item restore

You can restore a team by browsing the connector. This method returns data to its original location.

To restore a team, go to your connector and navigate to Groups & Teams, then restore the group's folder.

To restore only team data, open the group's folder and restore the Channels folder, then separately restore the Files folder.

Note: To also restore the team's site and notebook, select SharePoint. Keepit takes you to the SharePoint backup, where you can restore the site.

What's restored and what isn't

Team ID

When a team is restored, a new Team ID is created.

Conversations

All channels with all conversations (posts and replies) are restored.

• If the channel still exists in Teams, deleted and edited messages are added to the bottom of the posts feed. All existing messages that haven't been edited are skipped.
• If the channel has been deleted from Teams, the channel with all messages is restored.

Message sender and timestamp

All restored messages and replies are posted by the Global Administrator account. The name of the original sender appears in the body of the message as a header inside a green box.

The timestamp reflects when the message was restored, not when it was originally sent.

Original messages

Restored messages

Message attachments 

Files originally attached to messages — such as images and Word documents — are attached but aren't previewable. All these files can be found in the team's Files tab.

Other message elements

Embedded text and other items such as code snippets, gifs, stickers, and emojis are restored. Reactions to messages aren't restored.

Files

All files are returned to the Files tab. This includes files uploaded to the folder and files attached to messages.

In some cases, files from private channels may not be restored. If the Files tab is empty, restore the Files folder again from the connector level or through item restore.

Wiki

Wiki pages aren't restored. This data can only be shared or downloaded.

Tabs

All standard tabs are restored:

• Website
• Planner
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Visio
• PDF
• Document Library
• OneNote
• SharePoint
• Stream
• Forms
• Power BI
• Flow
• Azure DevOps