“Can you get that file back?”
A lucky recovery is not the same as a backup plan.
Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams already keep something recoverable by default. Whether that default actually matches what your business would need after a real deletion, a leaver, or a ransomware attempt is a planning question—worth answering before the next incident, not during it.
Start with what already exists
What Microsoft 365 keeps recoverable by default.
| Service | What it keeps by default | What a written policy can change | Who owns that decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exchange mail | A rolling recovery window for deleted items and recently removed mailboxes. | How long a deleted item or a former employee’s mailbox stays recoverable. | Tenant retention policy owner |
| OneDrive | A recycle bin and version history for each person’s files. | How long a deleted file or an earlier version stays reachable. | Tenant retention policy owner |
| SharePoint | A two-stage recycle bin and version history for each site. | Site-level retention, and who can restore on a site’s behalf. | Site owner, reviewed by the tenant owner |
| Teams | Chat and channel content riding on the mailbox and site behind it. | Whether Teams content follows a longer retention rule than the default. | Tenant retention policy owner |
Say the quiet part plainly
Retention is a real default. It is not a backup.
- Does native retention survive a compromised admin account?
- Not fully. A retention policy can itself be changed or turned off by whoever holds that access—one reason many businesses add a dedicated backup product as a separate layer.
- Does the desk sell or run a specific backup product?
- No product is named or included here. The desk can check and explain your current native retention settings; choosing and deploying a dedicated backup product is a separate purchasing decision.
- Is “we’re on Microsoft 365” the same as “we’re backed up”?
- No. It is a genuinely useful default—just not one built to survive every deletion, ransomware event, or configuration change the way a dedicated backup product is.
- Does Plus include a managed backup service?
- No. Plus adds priority queue position, light tenant check-ins, and light security-baseline support—not managed backups. See the pricing page for exactly what is included.
Answer these before you need them
Four questions worth checking on a quiet week.
Each one is answerable today, without waiting for a deletion to force the issue.
- How far back can we actually go?
- Name the current retention window for mail, files, and Teams content—checked against the tenant, not assumed.
- What survives a leaver’s account being removed?
- Offboarding can remove more than access if mailbox and file ownership were never decided first.
- Who can change the retention policy itself?
- If the honest answer is “whoever happens to have admin access,” that is worth reviewing on its own.
- What actually needs a longer memory?
- Finance, legal, and HR content often deserve a longer or different rule than everyday working files.
Common questions
Recovery, retention, and where a product decision starts.
Can the desk restore a file I deleted last month?
Often yes, inside the current retention window—see OneDrive and SharePoint file support for the everyday recovery steps. This page is about planning that window on purpose, not the single request.
Do we actually need a separate backup product?
That depends on how much your business would lose if native retention were the only protection in place. Naming that risk honestly is the useful first step, not a pitch for one particular product.
Does the desk manage a third-party backup tool for us?
Deploying and administering a dedicated backup product is treated as separately scoped work, not an everyday desk request—named here so it becomes a decision instead of a surprise.