Microsoft Teams Backup Options & Their Limitations

Team data includes messages, shared files/attachments, SharePoint web pages, calendars and other items - six data types in total. These items are stored across virtually every component of Microsoft 365, including users' OneDrives, SharePoint libraries and Exchange mailboxes.

Let's havea look at each Teams component one by one. We'll discuss the location of the data in more detail in the next section.

1 Messages

Messages is a new Microsoft 365 data format specific to Teams. Teams messages include 1-1 user communication and channel messages (group posts); both are stored in Teams application (not in SharePoint/ExchangeOnline).

2 Shared Files

Message attachments and other files shared by Teams users are stored on senders' OneDrives (for private channels) or on the team SharePoint site (see the next chapter on how the data is structured).

3 Web Pages

Wiki is a default web page that is created for every team by default. The Wiki webpage is stored in the "Teams Wiki Data" document library on the SharePoint site (every team has a SharePoint site "linked" to it and we'll discuss it in the next chapter)

4 OneNote

A OneNote notebook is created for every team channel (by default) and is stored in the "Site Assets" document library on the team SharePoint site. The notebook can be shown as a team channel tab if a team owner adds it.

5 Group mailbox messages

Every team has a group Exchange mailbox linked to it. The group mailbox itself is not accessible in Microsoft 365 UI. But it is mapped to the team members' mailboxes and when an email is sent to the team group mailbox the team users can see it in the group folder in their Outlook app (Team #1 and Team #2 in the example above).

We'll discuss how Microsoft Groups are connected with Teams in the next chapter.

6 Group mailbox calendars

The default group mailbox linked to a team includes a group calendar. Users can view the calendar in the Calendar section of the Teams app, or on the Calendar tab in their mailboxes (see example above). team includes sharepoint, channels, drives, goup mailbox need to recreate a team (we can) need to recreate a sharepoint (we can) channels with messages is hard. before could not do that at all (could impersonate admin with permissions in the team, and then send all messages on his behalf - that's how veeam does it - can resotore to any team / any channel, but from 1 person 1 datetime avepoint - cannot resotre messages to channel, can export to html, and place it to documents (on sharepoint) in the channel we - can restore team to a new team (call it new name) restore channels - can restore completely wiht all meta & correct users / dates as in the old - but only for new team (microsoft created a new migration mode, it's avaialble only when creating the team initially, not available after; then opens migration API, after it's live the api is not avaialble); cannot therefore restore to exising teams noone restore teams as completely like we private channels only veeam (not good - visisble in backups as separate sharepoint hard to find it if different name; we map it correctly - SCREENSHOT all documents in private channel are mapped to the sharepoint documents) and avepoint (seaparately shareport as well, hard to recover hard to find) Group mailbox - nooone has acess to it, it's just mapped to member's mailboxes; each team has this mailbox (all emails sent to team email go to this mailbox) we backit up completely with folder structure (visible in team recovery); group mailbox ignored by most other vendors (incl. avepoint) we backup / restore group memberships

Every Microsoft team has an MS Group, a Group mailbox and a SharePoint online site associated with the team. In addition to these entities, Teams data is also stored on users' OneDrives.

MS Groups and Group Mailboxes

Team's users are members of the MS Groups associated with their teams. The name of the Group is always the same as the name of the team it is linked to.

Team MS Groups have team Group mailboxes (the name of the mailbox is also the same as the name of the team). All email sent to such mailboxes are relayed to the team members - users see it in their Outlook app, Groups section → "Team Name" (see Image 2 in the previous section).

Where Teams attachments & files are stored

Files attached to public channel posts are stored on the team SharePoint site (team SharePoint site → Documents → "Channel Name").

Web pages (including wiki) are stored on the SharePoint web pages library (SharePoint site → Pages).

If a channels is private, then its web pages and channel attachments are stored on a dedicated SharePoint site which Microsoft 365 creates for each private channel (the name of the SharePoint site in this case is the same as the name of the private channel).

Files attached to 1-1 Teams messages are stored on users' OneDrives (a shared file is stored on the OneDrive that belongs to the user who sent it).

Overall Structure and Location of Teams Data

Below is the summary

There are two kinds of native Microsoft 365 Teams backup capabilities. The first in the standard built-in retention & recovery features available in all M365 subscriptions. The second is the Compliance Center retention features only available in senior E3/E5 Microsoft 365 plans.

You can read more about both kinds of native M365 data backup/recovery features in another blog post here.

Standard Built-in Teams Retention & Recovery

The built-in Microsoft 365 recovery helps recover the portion of Teams data stored on team SharePoint sites (Teams Wiki, Files and OneNote) as well as the data stored in team shared Exchange mailbox (emails sent to Teams mailbox and Teams calendar).

The key limitations of the standard recovery are:

• the data retention period is limited to 93 (or less) days;
• Team messages aren't protected by the built-in mechanism.

All items (file attachments and team web pages) deleted from Teams SharePoint sites and users OneDrives go into Recycle Bin, where they stay 93 days before they're permanently deleted. If a user empties their Recycle Bin before 93 days pass, then the data goes to Second Stage Recycle Bin (where stays for the remainder of the 93 days period).

Deleted Exchange online data (emails and calendars) follow a similar path. Deleted items are initially moved to the first stage recycle bin (where they can be recovered by users) and then to the second stage recycle bin (recoverable by admins).

The total recovery window for deleted Exchange online items is at most 60 days (deleted items are stored for 30 days in the first recycle bin, plus 30 days in the second recycle bin).

Compliance Center Retention Policies

The second kind of native Microsoft 365 data protection capabilities is the compliance retention, available only in premium (more expensive) E3-E5 M365 subscriptions. You can use the compliance retention to implement Microsoft Teams backup strategy and keep deleted/modified Teams data indefinetely.

If you want to know more about the compliance retention and its cost, check the article we already mentioned earlier.

In short, to use the retention policies as Teams backup you'll need to configure two policies (a single retention policy cannot retain Teams and any other data type at the same time). Here are the steps:

1. Go to compliance.microsoft.com
2. Create one policy for Teams chats and channels. This policy will retain messages (only) from:

• one-to-one team chats
• public & private team channels

1. Create another (2nd) policy to retain:

• Team users' OneDrive data (files from 1-1 Teams chats are stored there)
• Team users' mailboxes (contain emails sent to the Teams email address and the Teams calendar)
• Team SharePoint sites (one site per team, plus additional sites - one for every private channel in the team)

Strength and limitations of the native Teams data protection

The main disadvantages of the standard (available in all plans) M365 recovery tools is obviously the short 60-90 days recovery window and the incomplete retention (no messages). At the same time, the standard recovery enables high-fidelity data recovery to the same place it was deleted from.

The compliance retention policies help address both disadvantages - they extend the recovery window (indefinetely) and retain all Teams messages. However, there is no mechanism to restore the data back to M365 (it has to be downloaded and imported manually) which is often a showstopper for larger organizations.

There are 7 Office 365 backup vendors that, in our opinion, provide usable support of Microsoft Teams backup.

The three most complete tools - AvePoint, Veeam and SkyKick - provide backup of Team channel messages and attachments, as well as partial 1-1 Team chats and their attachments backup.

To backup 1-1 team chats with all the 3 solutions administrators have to manually assign protection to each Team member, and therefore we consider their support of 1-1 chats and attachments backup to be partial. Unlike other solutions, Afi backup enables admins to select all members of a Team and protect them automatically (without the need to do so one by one).

	Afi	AvePoint	Veeam	Spanning	Skykick	Synology
Teams Messaging
Channel messages
Channel attachments
Private channel messages
Private channel attachments
1-1 chats
1-1 chat attachments
Files & Pages
Public channel Files
Private channel Files
Wiki pages
Other
Shared mailboxes
Shared calendars
Tasks (Planner)

Full support Partial support Not supported

One common drawbacks of the backup tools is the inability to backup private Team channels data (chats, attachments and Files). AvePoint is the only vendor (aside from Afi) which enables the backup of private channel messages, but it does not backup the attachemnts and private channel Files (the backup can be scheduled, but no data is retained).

Other frequent drawbacks of the third-party Teams backup tools include partial or absent support of 1-1 attachments and messages, as well as unsupported data types (shared calendars, OneNote notebooks) and incomplete support of Wiki pages (most solutions can back them up as binary files, but the data cannot be restored back to Office 365 correctly).

Afi Teams Backup

Afi provides the most complete MS Teams backup (including private channels contents and Teams data stored on team members OneDrives). Afi is also the only cloud Office 365 backup service that enables the management of user backup policies based on their Group and Team membership.

It only takes 1-2 minutes to configure Teams backup in Afi:

1. Select a teams in the Groups/Teams resource view, and assign a backup SLA policy to it.

1. Select a Teams channel in the Active Directory view to assign a backup SLA policy to all users that have access to the Teams channel.

Using Afi you can backup and recover Teams messages, Files and other Teams resources. Afi provides flexible point-in-time recovery options including online data preview, full-text search for Exchange items and 10s other unique features. Learn more about Afi Office 365 backup or feel free to start a free trial.

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