This short post will cover the two ways to recover different versions of files stored in OneDrive For Business. See my previous posts on why OneDrive for Business is a good choice and How to see the Status of OneDrive for Business files and folders.
Using the Windows Explorer
The most obvious way to get to a previous version of a file is to right click on it.
In my sample I have three versions of my file. (see below).
When I selected version history, this window appears showing me all three of my versions. You can see two of them I saved close together. The three blue lines denote the newest file and you will see this appear next to the newest files stored in Onedrive when in the portal.
If I select the second version (below) you can see that I get a couple of options to deal with the file. Its self-explanatory.
- Restore will overwrite the latest version with the selected restore point.
- Download will download a copy of the previous version of the file, leaving the latest version still in place.
- Delete will remove that restore point.
That’s pretty straightforward and easy.
Using the OneDrive Portal
See How to access the Microsoft 365 portal for the web part of this tutorial
In the OneDrive Portal you do it like this. Firstly, how did I get here? I right clicked the folder AAA Documents and selected View Online. This took me into the portal and straight into the folder location. You can see my Word Document and there are the three blue lines showing that it’s a new file.
Right clicking in the portal gives a lot of options but near the bottom is Version History.
The versions appear on the right side of the screen and there again are my options. They are slightly different. Restore will as before, replace the latest version.
Open File will open the file in the portal using Word Online
Delete Version, well, I think that’s obvious.
Recovering Deleted Items
Still in the portal, on the left side, is the recycle bin. After deleting my second version of my Word document, I can now see it in the bin.
Again, a right click on the file shows my options. Delete, Restore or Details. Now here is something to be aware of. I deleted a version of the file. Not the latest version. If I restore that file from the bin, it is simply restored back into the version list. The latest version of the file is unaffected.
If I had deleted the latest version of the file it would have removed the file entirely and then if I restored it would have restored the file normally.
So that’s it. I will shortly post on how to share files between users.