Can I recover a deleted Microsoft account?

Answer

You must have administrator permissions in Microsoft 365 to do this. In the administrator center, go to the Users > Deleted users page. On the Deleted users page, select the user that you want to restore, and then choose Restore. On the Restore page, follow instructions for setting a password and then selecting Restore on button it indicates.

They are deleted from all devices as soon as you delete or deactivate your account, in accordance with our privacy practices. Your files remain on OneDrive until you remove them. Learn more about how to delete your Microsoft account and what happens to data associated with it.

What happens if a user disables his/her Microsoft account? Are the files still stored on OneDrive? What about the documents stored on SharePoint Online? How do I retrieve them? On Office 365, can I retrieve my data after I have removed an employee from Azure Active Directory (AAD)? Will their access be disabled for Office 365 apps that they used previously?

If a user is no longer using an account, the user can disable their Microsoft Account at any time. While disabling your Microsoft account will remove you from AAD, it will not remove data stored on Office 365 or OneDrive. You can still access files after disabling your account through other devices that are already logged in and authorized to use the service.

In most cases, you can also retrieve data from SharePoint Online even after you have disabled your account and released all associated licenses by removing your user’s SharePoint Online site collection administrator permissions.

How do I set up a corporate Microsoft account for my business?

Your organization can sign up for a corporate Microsoft account at the link below. You will need to provide your company’s information and then verify it with an email address that is registered to your organization. https://signup.live.com/signupwithcorpdomain

If I delete my personal OneDrive account, will Office 365 continue to work? Will any of the licensing agreements be affected? If I want to go back to using OneDrive after deleting my personal account, would a new personal account be created or would I be able to use the existing one? What about making changes in settings on OneDrive such as sharing of folders between me and some other people (e.g. wife, colleagues) – how would this be done after deleting my personal account?

Deleting your Microsoft Account will not disrupt Office 365 services for any business or personal users you have signed up for. You cannot delete a Microsoft account that you use as an admin of an Office 365 business customer portal.

If I am running the latest version of OneDrive on one device and sign into another device with my work email address, what happens? Do both devices sync files? Can I see both sets of files in OneDrive? (For example, if there is data synced from my laptop and from my desktop computer.

Your work-related OneDrive files are stored on the company’s SharePoint Online site. All you need is the SharePoint Online URL and information about your administrator(s).

What happens if I sign out of my account on one device but have other devices signed in with that account? Is the data protected or are there risks associated with having the same Microsoft Account on multiple devices? Do these multiple devices sync files? What are some risks involved in signing out of an account on one device and leaving it signed in on another device (e.g., compromise of personal accounts, phishing, etc.)?

The scenario you describe sounds like a temporary situation. The data is safe and secure as it is stored in SharePoint Online. There would be no risk of phishing or credential theft as long as you signed in using the same Microsoft Account on all devices.

I have multiple personal accounts under my Windows account. How can I merge these into one OneDrive account? Should I use the same password for all accounts when merging them into OneDrive? Will this cause any problems with syncing files and documents if the original passwords are different?

You should not do anything to your existing Windows password (including updating it) because it will sync files and documents between your computers. If you want to manually merge your personal account into OneDrive, you can follow the steps in the Microsoft Support article How to merge a second user’s files and folders from another computer into your OneDrive | Microsoft Docs

What happens during the summer holidays or if I go on vacation? Do my data remain at all synced locations (i.e., is there backup data)? If not, what happens when I sync these accounts again after returning home? What happens with SharePoint Online documents that have not been synced locally for more than 30 days? Will I lose access to them? Are there any other problems?

There should be no problem accessing SharePoint Online document libraries if you are signed out of an Office 365 business subscription account.

What happens during a service outage?

When I sign in to Windows, do I access all signed-in accounts without any problems or do I need to sign in again with each account? What about things that Microsoft might change on the user interfaces (UI)? If there is an issue with UI compatibility for Office 365 or OneDrive, how can this be fixed by Microsoft?

As long as you have only one administrator for the business and your personal account and they are using the same work password, you should not see any problem signing into multiple devices. Additionally, we always try to maintain backward compatibility so your experience will not be impacted when we release future updates. However, some SharePoint Online features might break if new functionality is added that you take advantage of. In such scenarios, we generally provide guidance and timeframes to help our customers avoid any impacts.

I am a manager who can access all files in my company’s SharePoint Online site, but not the personal sites (i.e., OneDrive for Business) of my employees when they are signed in on their devices with their Office 365 business account. What should I do?

Microsoft Support article Check out thisfor more information about your rights as an administrator or user.

Does using OneDrive for Business have any effect on our company’s compliance laws? Does Microsoft offer any tools or suggestions to address these issues? This includes: Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Data Sensitive Data Location-based data

OneDrive for Business is subject to the location of your organization’s headquarters, as well as any country/region-specific mandates. It is also important to understand where your data reside and whom you rely upon to protect it from unauthorized access or breach.

If OneDrive for Business syncs files saved on my devices (phones, tablets, computers) with SharePoint Online, are these same files synced in the opposite direction—from SharePoint Online back to my devices? If so, what happens when I manually save a file in SharePoint Online that has an older version of the file saved locally? Does OneDrive delete the newer version from its local cache? Is it possible to prevent this from happening?

Yes, files saved on the device and in OneDrive can be synced back to SharePoint Online. However, changes made locally will never sync back out to devices. This is a limitation of how the synchronization process works. If you want to ensure that your documents are always up-to-date when they save them locally, use “ drafts ” instead of saving the document directly to SharePoint Online.