Microsoft 365 backup, because Microsoft won’t do it for you
Your email, files, SharePoint and Teams data live in the cloud, but Microsoft doesn’t keep a safety copy for you. We provide independent, automated backup so nothing is ever truly gone.
An employee leaves and deletes everything. You still get it back.
It happens more than you’d think, someone leaves, and on the way out their mailbox and files are emptied. Without an independent backup, that data can be gone for good once Microsoft’s short retention window passes. With backup in place, every email and every file is recoverable in full, so a departure, a mistake or a grudge never costs you your business records.
Everything’s in the cloud now, so back the cloud up
A few years ago your important files sat on a server you could see. Today they’re in Microsoft 365, email in Exchange Online, documents in OneDrive and SharePoint, conversations and files in Teams. It’s convenient, but it creates a quiet assumption that “the cloud” means “safe”. It doesn’t.
Microsoft keeps the service running. Keeping a recoverable copy of your data is your responsibility, that’s Microsoft’s own Shared Responsibility Model. Accidental deletion, a departing employee, ransomware, a misconfiguration or a retention setting quietly expiring can all destroy data with no way back.
Project IT sets up independent, automated Microsoft 365 backup so your business data has a real safety net, separate from Microsoft, encrypted, and quick to restore.
What’s protected
- Exchange Online, full mailboxes, calendars, contacts
- OneDrive, every user’s files and folders
- SharePoint, sites, libraries and lists
- Teams, channels, messages and shared files
- Automated daily backups, encrypted and offsite
- Restore a single email or an entire account
Every part of Microsoft 365, protected
Backup runs automatically across the apps your business depends on every day.
Exchange Online
Inbox, sent items, folders, attachments, calendars and contacts, full mailbox backup.
OneDrive
Every file and folder in each user’s personal cloud storage, versioned and recoverable.
SharePoint
Site collections, document libraries and lists, protected against deletion and overwrite.
Teams
Team structure, channel messages and the files shared across your collaboration spaces.
Microsoft’s built-in recovery isn’t a backup
Microsoft 365 has a recycle bin and some retention features, but they depend on licensing, configuration and short recovery windows, and they’re not designed to be a complete backup. Once those windows pass, or if data is deliberately purged, native tools can’t bring it back.
A dedicated backup gives you an independent restore path: a separate, encrypted copy you control, with proper retention and fast, granular recovery.
“We recommend that you regularly backup Your Content and Data that you store on the Services or store using Third-Party Apps and Services.”
– Microsoft Services AgreementMicrosoft 365 backup FAQs
Microsoft keeps the Microsoft 365 service available and protects its own infrastructure, but it doesn’t keep a recoverable backup of your individual data. Under Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model, protecting your content is your responsibility, which is why an independent backup matters.
Without backup, once the account is removed and Microsoft’s retention period passes, that mailbox and its files can be permanently gone. With backup in place, the departed employee’s email and files remain fully recoverable, so you keep every business record regardless of who comes and goes.
Recovery is granular and fast, from a single deleted email or file right through to an entire mailbox or account. You don’t have to restore everything to get back one item, so there’s no risk of overwriting data that’s still good.
It’s an important layer. Because backups are independent of Microsoft 365, encrypted and taken automatically, a clean copy of your data exists separately from anything ransomware encrypts inside your live environment, giving you a recovery path if the worst happens.
Backup is billed per user, per month, predictable and easy to budget. We’ll confirm the exact rate based on the number of users. For Project IT managed service clients it sits naturally alongside ongoing support; talk to us for a quote.
On Google Workspace instead?
We provide the same independent, automated backup for Gmail, Drive and shared drives.
Don’t assume the cloud is a backup
Let’s get independent backup in place for your Microsoft 365 environment, so a deletion, a departure or an attack never costs you your data.
