Ransomware recovery has long exposed a painful gap in enterprise backup tools: restoring a single corrupted file often meant triggering a full site restore, burning hours of administrative time. Microsoft is now moving to close that gap.
According to the announcement, Microsoft 365 Backup — the company’s existing backup and restore service for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange — will gain granular file- and folder-level restore capabilities starting early 2026. The feature entered public preview in early March 2026 and is expected to reach general availability worldwide between late April and early May 2026.
The change addresses a structural limitation in how the service has operated until now. Previously, the tool worked exclusively at the site or drive level, meaning a single deleted or corrupted file could force administrators into a full restore process. That approach is slow and disproportionate when the damage is isolated.
What Admins Can Now Do
With the updated capability, administrators can browse and search existing restore points for protected SharePoint sites and OneDrive accounts, then select only the specific files or folders that need recovery. The feature does not change where or how backup data is stored — it adds a more precise access point to existing restore points.
“This granular restore reduces recovery time, requires the SharePoint Backup Administrator role, and respects existing backup policies without impacting users,” Microsoft stated in a message center update.
Access is tightly scoped. The feature is available only to tenants that already have Microsoft 365 Backup enabled, and only administrators assigned the SharePoint Backup Administrator role can initiate restores. End users are not affected and will see no change to their experience.
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Preparation Steps Before Rollout
Before the feature reaches their environments, Microsoft advises customers to take three concrete steps:
- Review Microsoft 365 Backup coverage for SharePoint and OneDrive
- Ensure backup administrators are familiar with the granular restore workflow
- Update internal recovery runbooks to account for file- and folder-level restore scenarios
The company framed the capability as giving admins “finer control to restore specific files or folders containing personal data when responding to recovery, correction, or remediation scenarios.” The language points directly at compliance and data governance use cases, not just IT convenience.
This follows a separate expansion Microsoft made last month to Windows Backup for Organizations, an enterprise-grade tool that now allows enterprise users to restore personal settings and Microsoft Store apps from a previous Windows 11 device.
General availability of the granular restore feature for Microsoft 365 Backup is targeted for between late April and early May 2026.
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