Restore deleted conversation in an Office 365 Group

[Glen Steffens]

I deleted a conversation in an Office 365 Group that where I am an Owner. Is it possible to restore the conversation and, if so, where is that done? I cannot seem to find the recycle bin for the Office 365 Group mailbox.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Yeah, we've been trying to get the Group folks to realize that exposing some additional folders for Groups is a must... Anyway, to answer your question, yes, it is possible, but you have to resort to some workarounds. The easier one is to open the Group mailbox via the OWA "add shared folder" functionality - it will expose all the Group folders and you will be able to drag/drop or move the conversation out of Deleted items.

Another method is to do it via tools such as the EWSEditor: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exovoice/2017/04/26/recover-deleted-items-from-a-group-mailbox-i...

Pinging @Tony Redmond just to say "I told you so" :)

[#3]

Interestingly, I deleted the message yesterday using my Outlook client but there is nothing in the OWA Deleted Items folder or in the Recover Deleted Items of the shared mailbox. Any ideas?

[#4]

Shared mailboxes are different from Groups, which one are you talking about here? You can check the "recover deleted items" container and in general follow the recovery process outlined here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh125820(v=exchsrvcs.149).aspx

[#5]

Sorry, perhaps just a mix up in terms. I'm referring to the mailbox associated with the Office 365 group. This message was in the inbox of the Office 365 Group and I cannot find when following the instruction for adding shared folder in OWA. The Group is new so there is no issue with quotas so it stands to reason that it should be in the Deleted Items folder. In fact I deleted a second item from the inbox and it too is not in the Deleted Items folder. I must be looking in the wrong place... 

[#6]

Well, a quick way to check is to simply get the statistics of the Deleted items folder via:

Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -FolderScope deleted -Identity firstgroup | ft Name,Items*

Name          ItemsInFolder ItemsInFolderAndSubfolders
----          ------------- --------------------------
Deleted Items             3                          3

Or just do an eDiscovery against the Group.

[#7]

@Vasil Michev what permissions do you need to give to open the mailbox using OWA? I just keep being told I don;t have enough permissions.

[#8]

Owner I guess, haven't tried it member. Make sure to use the "Add shared folder" right-click menu, not the "open another maibox" functionality.

[#9]

Thanks! As you suspected I was opening the mailbox not the shared folder :)

[#10]

Just getting frustrated with this....... I deleted several messages in an O365 group and cannot find anyway to restore them. Although when I look at the group mailbox statistics, I can see that the deleted item count goes up so the deleted messages are getting logged somewhere. I have gone through adding the mailbox as a shared folder in OWA but the deleted items folder shows up as empty. Anyone have any idea how to restore these please?

[#11]

If they are not in the "deleted items" folder, you will have to check the "recover deleted items" and in general, follow the normal process of recovering items in Exchange.

[#12]

Hello, all. Just curious if anyone has successfully restored an Office 365 Group Conversation which was deleted by a "regular" user. So far, we have not been able to do this. Here's what we're seeing:

• Conversations deleted from Outlook for PC are permanently deleted (i.e., they do not go into the Group's Deleted Items folder nor the Deleted Items folder of the "deleter").
• Conversations deleted from within the Groups section of the Outlook Web App are permanently deleted (i.e., they do not go into the Group's Deleted Items folder nor the Deleted Items folder of the "deleter").
• Conversations deleted from within the actual Group's mailbox (accessed by using the Add Shared Folder functionality) are moved into the Deleted Items folder of the user who deleted the conversation. Note: you are not actually deleting an entire Conversation this way - you're deleting individual messages. Additionally, when you recover them, they get recovered to the Inbox of the user who deleted the message, not the Inbox of the Group. You then have to move the message to the Group Inbox. After you move the message back, things do seem to sync back up into a Conversation, and it will reappear in the Groups section of Outlook.
• Conversations cannot be deleted from Outlook for Mac.

So what we're seeing is that there is no way to recover a deleted Conversation. I say this because a "regular" user is not going to be accessing the Group using the Add Shared Folder function. They are going to be accessing it using the Groups section within Outlook or OWA.

If we've overlooked something, please let me know - we're excited about Groups but a little nervous about not being able to recover a Conversation.

[#13]

As explained in the thread above, deleting conversations is no different that deleting a regular message in a mailbox, and the same recovery process applies. The only differences are due to the restricted UI presented for groups, but using EWS or the other workarounds mentioned will do the trick.

[#14]

Hi, 

I have created a script to export specific folders using content search, although, it is just an alternative of what was already mentioned by @Vasil Michev

In this specific case you would grab deletions and purges folder. 

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office365/Exchange-Create-a-PST-of-a-6441e4f8

[#15]

Is there any way to find what user has deleted a conversation or a message?

[#16]

I understand this conversation is five years old.

This works for me when I right-click on OWA > Folders and add a shared folder for an Outlook group I am a member of. I am then able to see the Recycle Bin. So, thanks for this advice!

I cannot add a Teams group shared folder using this method. I understand Teams groups are (now) hidden from the GAL and the group calendar is disabled (either or both can be enabled with Power Shell). So, how to expose the Recycle Bin for a Teams group mailbox?

I see the link from the EWSEditor Support page no longer works.

I think the EWS method is no longer supported.  What now?  Thank you.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/upcoming-changes-to-exchange-web-services-...