Restoring a file from SharePoint Online is quite straightforward.
Here are the steps you can follow:
- Go to the SharePoint site where the file was deleted.
- Click on the Recycle Bin in the Quick Launch bar on the left of the screen. If you don’t see it, go to Site Contents and then select Recycle Bin as in the second image.
- Find the file you want to restore. You can use the search bar if there are many items.
- Select the file by clicking the checkbox next to it.
- Click Restore at the top of the page. The file will be restored to its original location.
If the file isn’t in the first stage Recycle Bin, you can check the second stage Recycle Bin by scrolling to the bottom of the Recycle Bin page and clicking on the link to the second stage Recycle Bin1.
If you need to restore an entire shared library to a previous time, you can do so by:
- Going to the document library.
- Clicking on the Settings (gear icon) in the upper right.
- Selecting Restore this library.
- Choosing a date range and selecting the files you want to restore.
- Use the activity chart and activity feed to review the recent activities that you want to undo.
The daily activity chart shows the volume of file activities in each day for the last 30 days. It gives you an overview of what has happened to your library over time and can help you identify any unusual activities, such as when your files were infected by malware.
The activity feed shows individual file and folder operations in reverse chronological order. You can scroll down to see previous days or move the slider below the daily activity chart to quickly move to a specific day.
- If you're selecting a custom date and time, select the earliest activity that you want to undo. When you select an activity, all other activities that occurred after that are selected automatically.
- When you’re ready to restore your library, select Restore to undo all the activities you selected.
- Your library will be restored to the state it was in before the first activity you selected. If you change your mind about the restore you just did, you can select Restore this library to undo the restore by selecting the restore action you just did.