Ways to restore a team

To bring back a team, you can restore the entire group associated with it, which will bring back all team data as well as group data.

Alternatively, if you want to restore only a team, you can select to restore only Channels (which brings back channels with conversations and tabs) and Files (which brings back message attachments and other files).

Restore Wizard

You can recover a team through the Restore Wizard. This method allows you to select how we handle duplicate items. For more information on what happens in case of duplicate items, read here.

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

Note: If you also want to restore the team site and notebook, select the SharePoint checkbox.

Item Restore

You can recover a team by browsing the connector. This method returns data in place to its original location. For more information on what happens in case of duplicate items, read here. 

To recover a team, restore the group associated with the team by navigating Connector name > Groups & Teams > and then restoring the group's folder.

Alternatively, if you want to restore only team data, open the group's folder and restore the Channels folder and then separately restore the Files folder.

Note: To restore also the team's site and notebook, select the SharePoint folder to be taken to the SharePoint backup. From here you can restore the site.

What will the team look like after it is restored?

Team ID

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

Conversations

All the channels with all conversations (posts and replies) will be restored.

• If the channel still exists in Teams, deleted and edited messages will be added to the bottom of the posts feed. All existing messages that have not been edited will be skipped.
• If the channel has been deleted from Teams, the channel with all messages will be restored.

Message sender and timestamp

All restored messages and replies will be posted by the Global admin account. The name of the original sender will be found in the body of the message as a header inside a green box. 

The timestamp will reflect the data that the message was restored, not the date that it was sent. 

Original messages

Restored messages

Message Attachments 
Files that were originally attached to messages – such as images, Word documents, etc. – will be attached but will not be previewable. However, all these files can be found in the team's Files tab.

Other Elements of Messages

Embedded text and other items such as code snippets, gifs, stickers, and emojis are restored.

Reactions to messages are not restored.

Files

All files will be returned to the Files tab. This includes all files that were uploaded to this folder as well as all files that were attached to messages.

In some cases, the files of private channels may not be restored. If you find the Files tab to be empty, try to restore the Files folder again either through the Restore Wizard or through an item restore. 

Wiki

Wiki pages are not restored. This data can only be shared or downloaded.

Tabs

All standard tabs will be restored: Website, Planner, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, PDF, Document Library, OneNote, SharePoint, Stream, Forms, Power BI, Flow, and Azure DevOps 

For more details on what embedded content returns to the tabs, see here.