Summary
You’ll

. You’ll use temporary admin/owner access if needed, verify the user can open the file, then remove your elevated access.


Instructions

  1. Prep

    • Confirm: file path (Team/Channel/Library or user’s OneDrive), filename, requester, and approximate last known good date/time.

    • Make sure you have access. If not, temporarily elevate (next step).

  2. If you need access: grant temporary permissions

    • Team file (SharePoint-backed):

      • Go to Teams Admin Center → Teams → Manage teams → [Team] → Members.

      • Add yourself as Owner (or add a helpdesk admin group as Owner).

  3. Open the correct library and locate the file

    • Team file: In Teams, open the channel → Files → Open in SharePoint.

      • In SharePoint: Documents → drill into folders until you find the file.

  4. Use Version History to restore a good copy

    • Hover the file → More (… ) → Version history.

    • In the list:

      • Click the most recent version prior to corruption → Preview it to confirm it’s good.

      • If good, click Restore on that version.

      • If not good, try the next-older version until you find a clean one.

    • Tip: If the good version is very old or restore isn’t ideal, use Download on that prior version, then Upload as “Filename (Restored YYYY-MM-DD).docx” and optionally delete/retain the corrupted one per policy.

  5. Validate

    • Open the restored file in the browser and (if applicable) in the Office desktop app.

    • Confirm the content looks correct (spot-check a few sections).

    • Ask the requester (e.g., Caitlin) to open it from their usual location (Teams/SharePoint/OneDrive) and confirm no corruption warning appears and it saves normally.

  6. Clean up access & prevent re-corruption

    • Remove yourself as Owner/stop sharing:

      • Teams Admin Center → [Team] → Members: remove your Owner role (or revert to previous state).

      • SharePoint/OneDrive: remove your explicit share if you added one.

    • If the file was corrupted by local sync:

      • Have the user close Office apps.

      • In OneDrive client, pause syncing → delete the local cached copy → Files on Demand re-downloads the restored file → resume syncing.

      • Advise the user to avoid simultaneous edits in multiple apps and watch for sync error badges.



  • If corruption recurs, capture details (device name, OneDrive client version, error screenshots) and consider: repairing Office, resetting OneDrive, or checking for third-party add-ins/AV that may lock files.




TAGS: onedrive, sharepoint, teams-files, version-history, restore-file, file-recovery, document-recovery, corrupted-file, previous-version, microsoft-365, office-365, sharepoint-library, onedrive-restore, file-versioning, sync-issues, coauthoring-conflict, locked-file, autosave, cloud-storage, helpdesk-runbook