Easy Manual Steps to Restore Deleted Groups in Office 365
Many Office 365/Exchange Online users are looking for a solution to restore deleted groups in Office 365 account. Microsoft has rolled out long-awaited capacity to recover deleted groups in Exchange Online/Outlook 365. When a group is deleted, they are held for a particular spam of time known as the retention period. These files are even known as soft deleted files. The soft deleted files are held for a span of 30 days. If an administrator wants to get back the file, it can be retrieved back within thirty days only. All the group data i.e., Teams and Planner that comprises of associated application are included in the process of restore. In contrary to it, there are still few issues with the team that is necessary to resolve.
User Scenario to Retrieve Office 365 Deleted Groups
A user tried to demonstrate things practically, he/ she made groups in MS Outlook i.e., Teams and planner. Both the groups appeared in the Microsoft Office 365 group report as a newly generated Group. The next step performed was the deletion of groups in Microsoft Outlook. A popup is displayed showing groups deleted. Now, the question arises how to recover deleted Office 365 Groups?
Disclaimer
A warning message comes from Microsoft showing that the process will take only a few minutes. But, in few cases, it takes up to 24 hours. A message is received when restoring deleted Outlook 365 Groups is complete.
Manual Approach to Restore Deleted Groups in Office 365/Exchange Online:
Let us resolve the user’s query by providing a way to appropriate solution:
Recover Office 365 Deleted Groups:
- To restore a deleted group, first connect to the PowerShell.
- Write a command in PS: AzureADMSDeletedGroup cmdlet.
- When the user runs this command, all the soft deleted Outlook 365 groups present in the organization will be displyed. But, only those groups will appear which are under the duration of 30 days i.e. retention period.
- One can even preview the list of the soft-deleted groups using the following cmdlet in the PowerShell:
Get-AzureADMSDeletedGroup - To retrieve deleted Office 365 Groups when the required Group IDs are known, one can use:
AzureADMSDeletedDirectoryObject cmdlet - Jotted down the object ID of group or groups one needs to restore, run the command given below:
Get-AzureADMSDeletedGroup. - To retrieve a group run the following command in PowerShell:
Restore-AzureADMSDeletedDirectoryObject –Id - To check whether the group is restored again, one should write the command mentioned below in the PowerShell:
Get-AzureADGroup –ObjectId
Note: If the user is unable to find his/her deleted group(s), it means the group is permanently deleted from the list.
Caution: If one has created a new group with same credentials or SMTP address as that of the deleted group that needs to be restored, one needs to delete the new group first else it will be unable to restore the deleted group.
After restoring the deleted Office 365 groups, the groups reappears on the navigation panel in MS Outlook and Outlook Web Access. All the restored content that comprises of SharePoint and Planner would be again available to group members.
The restored group content comprises of following 7 features namely:
- Azure Active Directory (AD)
- Office 365 Group Object members
- Office 365 Group object properties
- Group SMTP address
- Shared inbox and calendar of Exchange
- Planner
- One Note Notebook
Recover Delete Groups in Office 365 Permanently
Sometimes, a situation arises where a user wants to restore the deleted O365 group permanently without the retention period duration. In such case, one needs to start the PowerShell command and run the command mentioned below:
Get-AzureADMSDeletedGroup
Note: Make sure that you have jotted down the object id of the group(s) you want to delete permanently. But purging the data leads to deletion.
Recommended: It is suggested to take the backup of Office 365 account, before deleting any group or data, so that it can be used in future if needed.
To Sum It Up
From the above write-up, one has a clear image in mind regarding how to restore deleted groups in Office 365 users account. The main issue of an Exchange Online/Outlook 365 user is to recover the group whether it has been deleted intentionally or by mistake. The above-mentioned data tells users a step by step guide for restoring deleted O365 groups. Follow every point and get your groups retrieved with an ease.