Microsoft is upgrading its Microsoft 365 Backup service to allow administrators to perform granular restores of individual files and folders from SharePoint and OneDrive, rather than requiring full-site restores. This aims to significantly speed up recovery times from incidents like ransomware or accidental deletion. The feature, which entered public preview in early March 2026 and is rolling out to general availability in late April to early May 2026, requires the SharePoint Backup Administrator role and does not change the end-user experience. The main topics covered are a new software feature for IT administrators, improvements to data backup and recovery, and specific product rollout timelines.
Microsoft will soon begin rolling out a significant upgrade to Microsoft 365 Backup to speed up recovery by allowing administrators to restore individual files and folders.
Microsoft 365 Backup is a SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange backup and restore service designed to protect against data loss from ransomware, accidental deletion, or data corruption.
Until now, Microsoft 365 Backup worked at the site or drive level, with a single corrupted or deleted file triggering a time-consuming full restore. With the new granular restore capabilities, admins can browse and search existing restore points for protected SharePoint sites and OneDrive accounts, then select only the specific files or folders they need to recover.
The feature is available exclusively to tenants with Microsoft 365 Backup already enabled and can only be used by admins assigned the SharePoint Backup Administrator role. End users are not directly affected by this change, as restore operations will only be initiated by admins and will be invisible to the user experience.
"Microsoft 365 Backup will enable admins to browse, search, and restore individual files or folders from SharePoint and OneDrive restore points starting early 2026," Microsoft said in a Thursday message center update.
"This granular restore reduces recovery time, requires the SharePoint Backup Administrator role, and respects existing backup policies without impacting users."
The feature has entered public preview in early March 2026 and is expected to reach general availability worldwide between late April and early May 2026.
Before the rollout reaches their tenants, Microsoft advises customers to review Microsoft 365 Backup coverage for SharePoint and OneDrive, ensure backup administrators are familiar with the granular restore workflow, and update internal recovery runbooks to account for file- and folder-level restore scenarios.
"This feature introduces a new method for admins to access existing Microsoft 365 Backup restore points at a more granular level (file or folder), without changing where or how backup data is stored," Microsoft added. "Admins gain finer control to restore specific files or folders containing personal data when responding to recovery, correction, or remediation scenarios."
Last month, Microsoft also expanded Windows Backup for Organizations, an enterprise-grade backup tool that helps simplify backups, to allow enterprise users to restore personal settings and Microsoft Store apps from a previous Windows 11 device.
Red Report 2026: Why Ransomware Encryption Dropped 38%
Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.
Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.
Meridiano
