Quick fix (4 steps)
- Raise Exchange deleted item retention to 30 days and keep SharePoint versioning on (native tools).
- Enable multifactor authentication for every account, admins first.
- Choose an independent backup with at least a one-year history (categories and questions).
- Run a restore test and write down the time (checklist).
Does Microsoft back up your Microsoft 365 data? The honest answer
Microsoft keeps the service running and keeps short-lived safety nets, but it does not give a small business a long-term, independent backup of its own mailboxes, files and Teams content. OneDrive and SharePoint are built to synchronize and share files, and synchronization copies mistakes as faithfully as it copies good work. Delete a folder, overwrite a spreadsheet or let ransomware encrypt a synced folder, and the change travels to every device and to the cloud within minutes.
That does not mean Microsoft 365 is unsafe. It means two different ideas are often mixed up: availability (the service stays online and your data survives a datacenter failure) and recoverability (you can get back the version of your data from last Tuesday, after a human or an attacker damaged it). Microsoft is very good at the first. The second is, in large part, your responsibility, and Microsoft says so in its own documentation. This guide explains exactly what the native safety nets are, how long they last, where they stop, and what a sensible small-business backup plan for Microsoft 365 looks like.
Everything below that involves a retention period or a product limit was checked against Microsoft Learn and Microsoft Support pages on November 5, 2026. Microsoft changes these details from time to time, so the sources are listed at the end. Where we could not verify something, we say so.
Sync, sharing and backup are three different things
Most owners say "it is in OneDrive, so it is backed up." Here is why that sentence is dangerous.
| Feature | Main purpose | What happens when a file is deleted or encrypted |
|---|---|---|
| Sync (OneDrive app) | Keep the same files on several devices | The deletion or the encrypted copy is synced everywhere |
| Sharing (SharePoint, Teams files) | Let a team work on the same documents | Anyone with edit rights can delete or overwrite; the change is shared |
| Versioning, recycle bin | Undo recent mistakes | Helps for a limited time, then content is permanently deleted |
| Backup (independent) | Recover an earlier state, even after an attack or a long unnoticed problem | You roll back to a point in time you choose, from a copy attackers cannot reach with a stolen password |
A real backup has three properties that sync does not have. It is a separate copy, so damage in the original does not reach it. It keeps history, so you can go back weeks or months. And it is protected from the same accounts that can damage the original, so one stolen password does not destroy both. Keep those three tests in mind, because they are also the questions to ask any backup product.
What Microsoft says about shared responsibility
Microsoft publishes a shared responsibility model for its cloud. For software-as-a-service products such as Microsoft 365, its Learn page lists customer data, configurations and settings, and identities and users as the customer's responsibility, while physical datacenters, physical hosts, the physical network and the operating system are Microsoft's. The same page states that for all deployment types, "you own your data and identities" and that you are responsible for protecting them. It also lists accounts, access management (including multifactor authentication) and endpoints as responsibilities you always retain. (Microsoft adds that the page is illustrative guidance, not a legal statement.)
Microsoft's consumer Services Agreement is blunt in a similar way: it says "Your Content remains yours and you are responsible for it" and recommends that you "regularly backup Your Content and Data that you store on the Services." That agreement is the consumer one, and business customers are covered by different commercial terms (the Microsoft Product Terms and your contract), so read it as a statement of Microsoft's general position, not as the contract that governs your business tenant.
In plain language: Microsoft guards the building. You guard what is inside, including who can walk in with a password and what happens to a file after somebody deletes it.
What Microsoft actually keeps, and for how long (verified)
Each workload has its own safety nets. The numbers below come from Microsoft Learn and Microsoft Support pages, checked on November 5, 2026.
| Workload | Native safety net | Verified retention | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| SharePoint and Teams files (work or school) | Site recycle bin, then site collection recycle bin | 93 days in total, counted from the day the item is deleted from its original location (moving to the second stage does not restart the clock) | After 93 days, or when emptied from the second stage, the item is permanently deleted. The second-stage bin can also purge oldest items early if it exceeds its quota |
| SharePoint, after final deletion | Microsoft-held service backups | 14 additional days; an administrator contacts Microsoft Support | Site collections only, not individual files; it is a service-level safety net, not a self-service backup |
| OneDrive and SharePoint libraries | Files Restore (point-in-time rollback) | Any point in the last 30 days | Needs a Microsoft 365 subscription; permanently deleted items cannot come back from here |
| OneDrive and SharePoint files | Version history | New libraries default to 500 versions per file (configurable) | Reducing versions reduces how far Files Restore can go back |
| Exchange Online mailboxes | Deleted Items, then Recoverable Items (deleted item retention) | 14 days by default; an administrator can raise it to a maximum of 30 days | When the period expires, the item is removed from Exchange Online. Quotas apply: default 20 GB soft and 30 GB hard limit for Recoverable Items |
About the 93-day confusion. Some blogs claim 93 days for the first stage and another 93 days for the second stage. Microsoft's own pages say otherwise: both the SharePoint recycle bin support article and the SharePoint and OneDrive data resiliency page on Microsoft Learn describe one 93-day clock that starts when you delete the item from its original location. The first-stage bin counts toward your storage; the second-stage bin does not. If a vendor tells you that you get 186 days, ask for the Microsoft page that says so. We could not find one.
One more nuance. Microsoft's pages state the 93-day recycle bin figure for SharePoint. The OneDrive recycle bin for work or school accounts follows the same SharePoint platform, but the pages we opened do not restate the figure in the OneDrive article, so when we say "93 days" for a user's OneDrive, treat it as the expected default and check your tenant settings. For personal OneDrive accounts, retention rules are different again, and that is not what this article covers.
Notice what is missing from the table: nothing here gives you a copy you can browse from three months ago. Everything is measured in days, and everything depends on the original account and tenant staying healthy and under your control.
Five real loss scenarios and what the native tools can do
The scenarios below are realistic and illustrative. They are not case studies of real clients. The numbers are invented to show how the retention windows behave, not to claim a specific outcome for your business.
Scenario 1 (illustrative): the accidental folder deletion nobody notices
An office manager at a 12-person firm tidies the shared "Projects 2025" folder in SharePoint in early March and deletes a subfolder she believes is a duplicate. Nobody opens it until a client calls in late June, about 110 days later. The recycle bin window is 93 days from deletion, so the folder was permanently purged roughly 17 days before anyone asked. Microsoft's extra 14-day service backup window has also passed, and it covers site collections through a support request, not single folders. The native tools cannot help. An independent backup with a one-year history restores the folder in minutes.
The lesson is not "93 days is too short." It is that problems are often discovered late, and any window measured in weeks will eventually be missed.
Scenario 2 (illustrative): ransomware on a synced laptop
A bookkeeper opens a fake invoice on a Monday morning. A ransomware program encrypts the files on her laptop, including the OneDrive folder. The OneDrive client dutifully uploads the encrypted versions. By the time IT notices, 4,000 files in the cloud are encrypted. This is the case where Microsoft's native tools are at their best: Files Restore can roll the OneDrive back to a point before the attack, anywhere within the past 30 days, and Microsoft's support page notes that when automatic ransomware detection triggers, a suggested restore date is filled in. If the attack is caught on day 1 and the rollback is clean, the business may recover without any third-party tool. If the attacker also deleted items permanently, got into the tenant with a stolen admin password, or the attack went unnoticed for 40 days, the native rollback may not be enough. See our guide on what to do in the first 24 hours after a ransomware attack for the response steps.
Scenario 3 (illustrative): the departing employee and the deleted account
A sales employee leaves on bad terms. Before leaving he deletes his mailbox contents and selected OneDrive folders. Meanwhile, the owner follows the standard offboarding checklist and deletes the user account, assuming all the data stays "in Microsoft." What happens next depends on settings that many small businesses never touched: how long a deleted user's OneDrive is retained, whether the mailbox is converted to a shared mailbox or kept under a hold, and whether anyone moved the files to a manager. If nobody acted, Exchange's deleted item retention (14 days by default, 30 days at most) may already have removed the deleted emails, and the offboarding step may have started a countdown on the rest. An independent backup that keeps a copy of departed users is the simplest safety net, and a written offboarding checklist (convert the mailbox, transfer OneDrive, then delete the licence) is the second.
Scenario 4 (illustrative): the compromised account and the quiet deletion
A phishing page steals a staff member's Microsoft 365 password. The attacker signs in from another country, creates a hidden inbox rule, and over three weeks deletes email threads that mention bank details, hoping to hide a payment fraud. The user never sees a ransom note, only gaps. With a 14-day default for deleted items, the early deletions are already gone for good by the time somebody investigates. Protecting the sign-in with multifactor authentication and, ideally, passkeys is the prevention step (see our guide to securing business email on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace). Backup is the repair step. You need both.
Scenario 5 (illustrative): an app or integration overwrites data
A third-party sync tool or a badly written automation overwrites 600 customer files with blank versions. Version history may let you restore file by file, but doing it for 600 files by hand takes a day. A point-in-time restore (native Files Restore within 30 days, or a backup product's rollback) handles it in one operation. This is a quiet category of loss that never makes headlines, and it happens more often than ransomware in many small offices.
The native gaps, summed up
- Short windows. 14 days for deleted email by default, 30 days for Files Restore, 93 days for recycle bins.
- Same tenant, same admin. If an attacker becomes a Global Administrator, the native safety nets live in the tenant the attacker now controls.
- No email-level rollback for most users. Recoverable Items helps a user restore deleted messages, but it is not a point-in-time restore of the whole mailbox.
- Microsoft Teams chats and channel messages. Files shared in Teams live in SharePoint and OneDrive, so they follow those rules. Microsoft's Exchange documentation notes that a hold or Teams chat retention policy preserves the original copy of a Teams message if it is modified or deleted, but without a retention policy or hold, you should not assume you can recover a deleted chat.
- Retention is not backup. Microsoft Purview retention policies and holds are designed for compliance and legal discovery. They can keep content longer, but they are not a point-in-time restore tool and they are not designed for fast recovery after an attack.
- Permanent deletion. SharePoint has an API that can skip the recycle bin entirely, a fact Microsoft itself flags for developers. A compromised app or user with the right rights can delete without a safety net.
For a wider view of how sync, backup and data recovery differ, see data recovery versus data backup.
The 3-2-1 rule applied to Microsoft 365
The classic 3-2-1 rule says: keep 3 copies of your data, on 2 different kinds of storage, with 1 copy offsite. Many people stop at the first copy because the cloud feels like "somewhere else." Here is how the rule maps onto a small business that lives in Microsoft 365.
| 3-2-1 element | Typical situation today | What a stronger setup looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 3 copies | The live data in Microsoft 365, plus a synced copy on laptops (which is the same data, not an independent copy) | The live data, plus an independent backup copy, plus a second copy or an export of the most critical content |
| 2 media or systems | One system: Microsoft 365 | Microsoft 365, plus a backup service that stores data outside your tenant, or a separate storage account in another provider |
| 1 offsite or isolated copy | None that survives a tenant takeover | A backup protected by separate credentials and multifactor authentication, ideally with delete protection or a retention lock |
Two additions matter for modern ransomware. First, many security teams now speak of 3-2-1-1-0: one copy offline or immutable, and zero errors after a restore test. Second, the backup account must be separate from the day-to-day admin account. If the same stolen password can open Microsoft 365 and delete the backup, you have one copy with extra steps.
A synced laptop is not a second copy. It is the same data in a second place, kept in agreement by the sync engine. If one side changes, the other follows. That is the opposite of what a backup is for.
Make the native tools as strong as they can be (free, 1 to 2 hours)
Before buying anything, tighten what you already pay for. These steps cost nothing extra on most business plans (check your licence for the details) and close the easiest gaps.
- Raise Exchange deleted item retention from 14 to 30 days. Microsoft documents 14 days as the default and 30 days as the maximum for the Recoverable Items folder. An administrator can change it per mailbox with PowerShell; Microsoft documents the exact command in its article on changing how long permanently deleted items are kept.
- Keep versioning on. New SharePoint libraries default to 500 versions per file. Do not lower this number to save space. Microsoft warns that reducing versions can reduce how effective Files Restore is.
- Learn where Files Restore is. In OneDrive for work or school, use the settings gear, then Restore your OneDrive. For SharePoint libraries, the library settings page has a Restore this library option. Practice once, on a test library, so the first time is not during an incident.
- Turn on multifactor authentication for everyone, and protect admin accounts first. Microsoft's own advice on safeguarding data starts with requiring two-factor authentication. Our Microsoft 365 services page explains how we help small businesses configure it.
- Restrict who can delete and who can share externally. Not every employee needs owner rights on every SharePoint site. Use groups with the minimum permissions.
- Consider retention policies for critical content. A Microsoft Purview retention policy can keep copies of content after deletion for a period you choose. Whether your licence includes it depends on your plan. Remember that it is a compliance tool, not a restore tool.
- Review offboarding. Write down the steps for a departing user: convert the mailbox to shared or place it under hold if needed, transfer OneDrive content, then remove the licence. Do it in that order.
- Turn on alerts. Mass deletion and ransomware detection alerts should reach a person who will actually read them, not an unmonitored mailbox.
These steps are worthwhile, but they do not turn Microsoft 365 into a backup. They stretch the same safety nets a little further.
Microsoft 365 Backup: Microsoft's own paid option
Microsoft offers a product called Microsoft 365 Backup, documented on Microsoft Learn (page updated November 4, 2026 at the time we checked). According to that page, it can back up all or selected SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts and Exchange mailboxes, and it is billed as pay as you go.
| Item | What Microsoft documents |
|---|---|
| Workloads covered | OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online (the page does not list Teams chat as a separate backup workload) |
| Recovery window | Configurable on a backup policy: 3 months, 6 months, or whole years from 1 to 10 for OneDrive and SharePoint; 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or 2 years for Exchange. Existing policies default to 1 year |
| Recovery points | Every 10 minutes for the two weeks prior, then weekly snapshots, for OneDrive and SharePoint full restores; 10-minute points for the prior 52 weeks for Exchange |
| Granular restore | Selected files and folders only from points within the most recent 14 days; full account or site restores across the whole window |
| Billing | $0.15 per GiB per month for all data protected; restores are free (USD list price as published on Microsoft Learn) |
| Storage design | Append-only storage inside the Microsoft 365 data trust boundary; deletion is not blocked, but a 90-day grace period applies after offboarding |
| Scale limits | Up to 1,000,000 items per workload, 100 policies per workload, 100,000 items per policy |
A rough cost example (our calculation, not a quote). At the published $0.15 per GiB per month, a small business protecting 500 GiB of OneDrive, SharePoint and mailbox data would pay about $75 per month in USD list pricing (500 x 0.15). One tebibyte (1,024 GiB) would be about $154 per month. We have not verified a Canadian-dollar price, tax treatment, or how it is billed through your reseller, so treat these as indicative and confirm in your own Azure billing setup.
Two honest caveats. First, because it is built inside the Microsoft 365 data boundary, it protects against many problems (ransomware, deletion, overwrite) but it is still one vendor and one account structure. A fully isolated copy is a different design goal, and some businesses will want both. Second, Microsoft notes that partner applications are built on the same platform, which means a third-party tool may use Microsoft's backup engine and add its own interface and extras. Compare what is actually inside each offer before you choose.
Third-party Microsoft 365 backup: the categories, not a ranking
There are dozens of Microsoft 365 backup products. We do not rank or recommend vendors here, because we could not verify each product's features and pricing for this article, and because the right choice depends on your size, budget and who will operate it. Instead, here are the categories and the questions that separate them.
| Category | How it works | Good fit | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud-to-cloud SaaS backup | A service connects to your tenant through approved permissions and copies mail, files and sites to its own storage | Most small businesses: no hardware, per-user pricing, quick to start | Check where data is stored (country), who holds the encryption keys, and whether the backup account is protected separately from your admin account |
| Backup built on Microsoft's engine | Native Microsoft 365 Backup, or a partner app built on the same platform | Businesses that want fast restores and everything inside Microsoft's data boundary | Still one vendor ecosystem; confirm what restore options and what support you actually get |
| Backup to your own storage (export or archive) | Scheduled exports of mailboxes and files to a NAS or a separate cloud account | Very small teams with technical help and a tight budget | Manual work, no point-in-time restore for most setups, easy to forget until it fails |
| Managed backup service | An IT provider chooses, configures, monitors and tests the tool for you | Teams with no in-house IT who want somebody accountable | Ask what you get if the provider disappears: can you take the backup account with you? |
Twelve questions to ask any backup vendor
- Which workloads are covered: Exchange mail, calendar and contacts, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams files, Teams chats?
- How often does the backup run, and can I see the time of the last successful run?
- How far back can I restore, and is there a limit on that?
- Can I restore a single email, a single file, a whole mailbox, a whole site?
- Can the backup be deleted by someone with a stolen admin password? Is there a delete lock or a separate approval?
- Where is the data stored (country and region), and who can access it?
- Is the data encrypted, and who controls the keys?
- What is the exact price per user or per GB, and does it change when mailboxes grow or users leave?
- What happens to the backups of a departed employee, and do I pay for them?
- Is there a restore test feature, a report, and an alert if a backup fails?
- What are the data export terms if I cancel?
- Who do I call during an incident, and in what language?
A vendor that cannot answer these in writing is not ready for your data. Be especially careful with promotional comparisons written by backup vendors themselves, which are common in search results, and with any ranking that does not explain how it was built.
What does it cost? Ranges and how to estimate
We deliberately do not publish a price list for third-party tools, because prices vary by vendor, by plan, by number of users and by contract, and we did not verify any specific product's pricing for this article. Here is how to estimate it yourself.
| Option | Pricing model | How to estimate | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Backup | Per GiB per month, restores free | Data size in GiB x $0.15 (USD list price, Microsoft Learn) | Verified in USD; CAD and tax not verified |
| Third-party SaaS backup | Usually per user per month, sometimes with storage tiers | Ask for 3 written quotes for your exact user count; ask what is extra (storage, Teams, archive mailboxes) | Indicative only: no figure is verified here |
| Own storage plus scripts | Storage cost plus your time | Storage subscription plus hours of setup and monthly checks | Depends on your situation |
| Managed service from an IT provider | Monthly fee, sometimes with setup | Compare the all-in monthly fee to the tool alone, including restore tests and support | Varies by provider |
A useful way to judge the price is to compare it to what a day of downtime or a lost client folder costs your business. For a 10-person office billing $1,000 in revenue per person per week (a figure chosen only to show the arithmetic), three days without access to customer files is on the order of $6,000 in disrupted work, before any lost deals. That is a bigger number than a year of backup fees for most small teams, which is why backup is closer to insurance than to a luxury. Your own numbers will differ; do the arithmetic with them.
Teams, Exchange and the details owners forget
- Shared mailboxes. Make sure the backup tool includes them. They are easy to leave out because they have no licence in some setups.
- Archive mailboxes and public folders. Confirm whether they are covered. Some tools back up the main mailbox only.
- Teams channel files live in SharePoint, and one-to-one Teams file sharing lives in OneDrive. If your tool backs up "SharePoint and OneDrive," these files are generally covered, but verify with a restore test.
- Teams chat messages. Coverage varies a lot by product. Ask the vendor directly and test it. Do not assume it is included.
- Microsoft 365 Groups, Planner, OneNote, Loop, Whiteboard. Some of these store data in SharePoint, others in separate services. Ask for the supported list in writing.
- Entra ID configuration. Users, groups, conditional access rules and app registrations are not a document or a mailbox. Export a configuration snapshot or document it, because recovering from a tenant compromise involves rebuilding settings, not just files.
- Laptops. OneDrive Known Folder Move protects Desktop and Documents in the cloud, but the same sync problem applies. Local application data, browser profiles and non-synced folders still need a device backup. See our automated backups guide for small businesses.
The restore test checklist: a backup you never tested is a hope
Most backup failures are discovered during a restore, which is the worst moment to learn anything. Schedule a restore test on a calendar, at least quarterly, and run it as a drill.
Microsoft 365 restore test checklist
- ☐ Pick a test user and a test SharePoint library that are not business critical.
- ☐ Delete 5 test files and 3 test emails on purpose, and write down the time.
- ☐ Restore a single email from the backup tool and confirm that it opens with its attachment.
- ☐ Restore a single file and confirm that it opens and the content is correct.
- ☐ Restore a full test mailbox or folder to a different location (not over the original).
- ☐ Time each step. Write the minutes down. That is your real recovery time, not the vendor's brochure number.
- ☐ Restore from a point at least 60 days old, to confirm that the long history works.
- ☐ Try to sign in to the backup console with a different admin account, to confirm that access is not tied to one person.
- ☐ Confirm that the backup admin account has multifactor authentication and is separate from daily admin accounts.
- ☐ Check the last 7 days of backup reports and make sure failures send an alert to a monitored address.
- ☐ Test a user departure: delete a test user and confirm their data is still restorable.
- ☐ Record the result, the date, and who ran the test. Keep it, because insurers and auditors ask for this kind of evidence.
Keep a one-page runbook with the answers to: who calls whom, where the backup console is, how to restore a mailbox, how to restore a site, and who has the authority to approve a rollback that overwrites current data. A clear runbook turns a panic into a procedure.
The Quebec angle: Loi 25, privacy incidents and backups
For Quebec businesses, backups are not only an operational question. Loi 25 (Quebec's private-sector privacy law, in force in stages since 2022) expects organizations to protect personal information with security measures that are appropriate to its sensitivity, and to handle confidentiality incidents: take reasonable measures to reduce the risk, assess the risk of serious injury, and notify the Commission d'accès à l'information and the people concerned when that risk exists. Organizations must also keep a register of incidents. We could not open the specific CAI page for these obligations on the day of writing, so confirm the exact wording and the retention duration of register entries with the CAI or a lawyer. This is general information, not legal advice. Our French-language guide on the incident register under Loi 25 covers the practical side.
Why does this matter for Microsoft 365? A ransomware attack on a mailbox containing client personal information can be a confidentiality incident, not just a continuity problem. A backup helps you restore operations, but it does not remove the duty to assess and document the incident. Also consider where your backup vendor stores data: a copy of personal information in another country or another cloud is still personal information, and a privacy impact assessment may be relevant when you transfer it outside Quebec. Ask the vendor where data is stored, and whether you can choose a Canadian region. For businesses with clients in several provinces, see how Loi 25 compares with federal rules in our comparison of Loi 25 and PIPEDA (in French).
Cyber insurance and backup evidence
Cyber insurers increasingly ask whether your backups are separate from your network, protected by multifactor authentication, and tested. A dated restore test log (see the checklist above) is useful evidence. Our guide to ransomware and cyber insurance coverage explains what insurers commonly ask for, and our ransomware protection checklist for small businesses pairs well with this one.
A simple plan by company size
| Size | Minimum sensible setup | Better setup |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 people | Native tools hardened (30-day mail retention, MFA, versioning), plus one independent backup with a one-year history, plus a quarterly restore test | Add a separate backup admin account and a written offboarding checklist |
| 6 to 25 people | All of the above, with shared mailboxes and key SharePoint sites included, alerts on failure, and a named owner for the restore test | Add an Entra configuration export, immutable or delete-protected backup, and a documented incident plan |
| 26 to 100 people | Policy-based backup for all workloads, role-based admin access, monthly reporting | Add a tested disaster recovery runbook, a tabletop exercise, and insurer-ready evidence |
When to call a pro, and what IT Cares can do
Call a professional if you cannot answer these three questions with a date and a name: When was the last successful restore test? Who can delete our backup? How far back can we restore email? If any answer is "I do not know," a short review will save you the surprise later.
IT Cares has provided remote and on-site IT support in Quebec and across Canada since 2014. For this topic, we can review your Microsoft 365 tenant settings, harden the native safety nets, help you compare backup options against the twelve questions above, set up the option you choose, and run the first restore test with you watching. Our single Expert Consultation is 119.99$ CAD for 60 minutes, which is enough for a tenant review and a prioritized plan for a small team. There is no obligation to buy anything else. You can read about our cloud backup service for Canadian businesses and our cloud backup guide for Canadian businesses, or call 1 (888) 711-9428.
Official resources
- Microsoft Learn: Cloud data security measures in SharePoint and OneDrive (retention, Files Restore, backups)
- Microsoft Learn: Recoverable Items folder in Exchange Online
- Microsoft Support: Restore your OneDrive
- Microsoft Learn: Overview of Microsoft 365 Backup
- Microsoft Learn: Shared responsibility in the cloud
- Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (cai.gouv.qc.ca), for Loi 25 guidance
Related reading on the OneDrive side: if sync itself is misbehaving, see OneDrive file can't be synced: fixes, and for a comparison of storage services see OneDrive vs Google Drive vs Dropbox.
Still stuck? Get a technician on it now
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Frequently asked questions
Related guides
- Automated backups for small business: guide and cost
- Cloud backup service for Canadian businesses
- Cloud backup for business: Canada guide 2026
- Data recovery vs data backup
- What to do in the 24 hours after a ransomware attack
- Ransomware and cyber insurance coverage
- Secure business email on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
- Microsoft 365 services in Canada
Sources and official references
Last verified: November 5, 2026
- Microsoft Learn: Cloud data security measures in SharePoint and OneDrive
- Microsoft Learn: SharePoint and OneDrive data resiliency in Microsoft 365
- Microsoft Support: How the recycle bin for a SharePoint site works
- Microsoft Support: Restore your OneDrive
- Microsoft Learn: Recoverable Items folder in Exchange Online
- Microsoft Learn: Overview of Microsoft 365 Backup
- Microsoft Learn: Shared responsibility in the cloud
- Microsoft Services Agreement