This article is brought to you by the Nonprofit Tech Acceleration (NTA) for Black and African American Communities Program Technical Team. For information on how to take advantage of the granted offerings or free technical consultation, please visit: Supporting Black Community Nonprofits | Microsoft Nonprofits
Greetings to our lovely NTA nonprofits. Inside of the realm of nonprofit organizations, where critical data and sensitive information plays a pivotal role in achieving your missions, the significance of backing up your files cannot be overstated. Many of you have just switched to using your organizational Microsoft 365 and, if you haven’t done so already, it is important to ensure the safety of the valuable files on your PC by backing them up to OneDrive. Whether it's donor records, program documentation, or important financial data, storing such information on OneDrive provides a reliable platform for preserving crucial files and protecting them against potential risks such as data loss, security breaches, or unforeseen disasters. This article is going to show you how you can make sure you are backing up your files to OneDrive as well as go over what to do in the case of an unforeseen circumstance, where you’ve lost files and you need to restore your OneDrive to a previous version.
Backing Up Your Files to OneDrive
- Select the cloud icon at the bottom of your Windows screen. If you have a personal account (white cloud) and an organizational account (blue cloud), there will be two clouds. Make sure you select the cloud for your organizational account. You can see the OneDrive name at the very top.
- Select the gear symbol at the top and select Settings.
- In settings, select Sync and Back Up > Manage backup.
- Select the toggles on the folders from your PC that you would like to have backed up to OneDrive and select save changes.
Congrats! Your computer will now begin the process for backing up these folders to OneDrive.
How to Restore Your OneDrive to a Previous Version
Recently, I was organizing my folders through the file explore and accidentally deleted major documents and files. Thankfully this could-be-disaster, had a fixable solution all thanks to having my files backed up to OneDrive, and the ability to restore OneDrive to previous versions. Some of these files were online only files, and when these are deleted, you cannot retrieve them from the recycling bin. So, a previous OneDrive version restoration is the way to go. If you ever find yourself in this situation, follow these steps to bring your files and documents back.
- Sign in to www.onedrive.com with your account credentials.
- In the left-side menu bar, I advise you to first check the recycling bin. If all the files you deleted cannot be found there, proceed with a version restoration.
3. On the left side of the screen select the settings gear > Restore your OneDrive.
4. In the drop-down menu select a date to which you would like to restore your OneDrive to. For example, if you just recently deleted the files today you can choose to restore them to yesterday’s version before the changed were made.
5. Select restore and that’s it!
Congratulations nonprofit, you are now a OneDrive pro and have recovered your files. Happy filing and as always, thank you for allowing the NTA team to serve you and help better serve our communities!