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Data recovery shouldn’t feel like an all-or-nothing decision. Until now, Microsoft 365 Backup allowed you to recover OneDrive accounts and SharePoint sites. We’re excited to announce granular browse and restore for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online, giving IT teams a more selective way to recover individual files and folders when something goes wrong, while leaving the rest of your environment untouched. 

With these enhancements, Microsoft 365 Backup provides IT teams with greater flexibility to back up and restore files, folders, accounts, and sites—helping streamline recovery timelines while maintaining security and control. (Learn more about restoration expectations.)  

Find and restore individual files & folders  

Granular browse and restore helps admins perform targeted recovery for a variety of scenarios, instead of restoring the entire OneDrive account or SharePoint site. You can browse backup snapshots, select specific files or folders, and restore only what’s needed. This can help streamline restore workflows and support recovery following events such as accidental deletions or security incidents. 

With this feature, Microsoft 365 Backup offers: 

• Enhanced control with selective search and restore options

• Precision recovery, allowing you to recover individual files or folders, which can help minimize disruption and save time 

• Ability to backup and restore SharePoint and OneDrive content with fidelity (e.g., file- and site-level metadata and permissions) 

In addition, admins have two ways to find files, folders, and sites to restore:

• Browse method: Windows Explorer-like interface to navigate folder structures and select items


• Search method: Search within a site/subsite by filename to quickly locate items

Next steps

Granular browse and restore is now generally available worldwide. We’re developing in-place restore (Roadmap ID: 464991), which restores files and folders to their original location with conflict resolution options: Fail, Rename, or Replace; we’ll share more about this feature and release dates in the future.

If you’re new to Microsoft 365 Backup, check out the Microsoft Learn documentation to set up Microsoft 365 Backup and get started today.  

If you’re already using Microsoft 365 Backup, you can start using granular browse and restore as soon as it’s available in your tenant. See the Restore data in Microsoft 365 Backup page to see the step-by-step process for granular file and folder restore.