Microsoft keeps your email running. Keeping a copy you can restore from is your job. Here is what Microsoft already gives you, where the gaps are, and what an email backup actually does.
Yes, for most businesses. Microsoft makes sure the service stays up and that a failed server does not lose your mailbox. It does not keep a point-in-time copy of your email that you can roll back to when something goes wrong on your side. That part is your responsibility.
Microsoft works on what it calls a shared responsibility model. Microsoft is responsible for the platform: the data centres, the servers, and keeping several copies of your mailbox so that a failed disk does not lose anything. You are responsible for the data in it: who can get to it, what gets deleted, and whether you can get it back.
Those copies are not a backup in the way most people mean it. If an email is deleted, every copy is deleted. If a mailbox is changed, every copy changes. They exist so Microsoft can survive its own hardware failing, not to put your mailbox back the way it was last Tuesday.
Microsoft now sells its own backup product as a paid extra. That is a fair sign that a backup is not part of the standard licence.
| Situation | What Microsoft gives you |
|---|---|
| Email deleted, still in Deleted Items | Restore it yourself, until the folder is emptied or cleared automatically |
| Deleted Items has been emptied | Recover Deleted Items, for 14 days by default. An admin can extend this to 30 days. |
| A user account has been deleted | The account and its mailbox can be restored for 30 days |
| After those windows | Gone, unless a retention policy or hold was set up beforehand |
Retention policies and holds can keep more, but what is available depends on your licence, they have to be in place before you need them, and they are designed for keeping records for compliance. They are not built for putting a mailbox back quickly.
In each case the built-in recovery has either run out or was never designed for the job.
A backup takes a copy of each mailbox on a schedule and keeps it apart from the mailbox itself, so deleting something in Outlook does not delete it from the backup. When you need something back, it can be restored from a copy taken before the problem.
Whatever you buy, ask to see a restore done. A backup nobody has restored from is an assumption, not a plan. If you want the wider picture, our guide to securing Microsoft 365 puts backup in context with the other controls.
This guide is about email. Files in OneDrive and SharePoint have their own recovery features, including version history and a recycle bin, and they have similar time limits. Ask any provider exactly which parts of Microsoft 365 they back up, because some cover email only.
Email backup is included in both of our support plans, alongside the Microsoft 365 licence and a remote helpdesk during business hours. Core is £45 per user, per month and Secure is £75. Restores are done on request during business hours. Klariq is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added.
If you are not sure what you could recover today, our security health check looks at backup and recovery as one of its nine areas.
Microsoft keeps several copies of your mailbox so its own hardware failures do not lose data, but it does not keep a point-in-time backup you can restore from. Deleted email can usually be recovered for 14 to 30 days. After that it is gone unless a retention policy was set up beforehand.
Once Deleted Items has been emptied, items can usually be recovered for 14 days by default, and an admin can extend that to 30 days. A deleted user account and its mailbox can be restored for 30 days.
No. A retention policy keeps items for compliance and has to be in place before you need it. It is not designed for restoring a mailbox to how it was at a point in time, which is what a backup does.
With Klariq, email backup is included in both support plans, from £45 per user, per month including the Microsoft 365 licence and a business-hours helpdesk. Klariq is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added.
Our security health check looks at backup and recovery alongside the rest of your Microsoft 365, and tells you plainly where the gaps are.
See the Security Health Check →More in this series: all Klariq guides.