SharePoint Files Disappear: How to Restore SharePoint Files

“Why are my files disappearing in SharePoint?”

SharePoint, a web-based cooperative platform, facilitates any enterprises or users to share documents/info with customers, colleagues, partners, etc.

Many enterprises prefer SharePoint due to its capabilities, features, convenience in seamless collaboration, etc.

Since SharePoint users utilize it to manage essential files and data, it will be a disaster if data gets lost.

File loss is not a rare case in collaborative platforms. Except for SharePoint files missing, quite a lot of users have reported OneDrive file missing issues.

Some even have found their important files disappear without any traces or clues or deleted SharePoint files not in Recycle Bin.

And naturally, they will wonder how to restore SharePoint files.

Firstly, let’s check the automatic document deletion policy.

Does SharePoint delete files automatically?

Shortly speaking, yes. Document deletion feature is feasible in SharePoint Server 2016 for users to avoid and against risk.

Users could specify their preferences in file deletion: time, temporary or permanent deletion, etc. Given this, many enterprises will equip backup for Microsoft Office 365 to guard against data loss as well.

So, this might be one reason for SharePoint files disappearing. To dig out more, move on to the next part.

The reason why SharePoint files missing

If unfortunately, you could not find your wanted SharePoint files, you could check out these to specify the causes.

Among these causes, deletion is a major one. After all, it is difficult for ordinary users to avoid accidentally deleting files from computers. Now, follow the solutions to fix the SharePoint files missing issue.

Fix: SharePoint files disappear

Solutions according to the causes are covered in this part. With the help of these methods, you could easily recover accidentally deleted files from your computer.

Solution 1. Check and ask for permission

As what has been told above, the files and folders could be accessed by all or a specific group of users. If some of the files were suddenly lost, the permission to you might have been shut.

For example, if a file has unique permissions, all other users could not access it.

>> Just check the permission or contact the host to change the permission settings.

Solution 2. Check the filter

When you use metadata, files could be filtered out via a view. Thus, some of the files could be invisible to you by chance. Go and check your filtering.

>> See if you have checked the option Show items only when the following is true > if so, change it to Show all items in this view.

Solution 3. Specify the search option/preferences

Because the desired files or folders may have been moved by others to another location, you need to regain access by contacting the user or searching the files in all site collections.

>> You could input the filename in the search box > set the Results found in Everything.

Thus, all sites in your environment could be scanned. And thus you could have the SharePoint files disappear issue fixed.

Solution 4. Recover deleted SharePoint files

Still cannot find missing SharePoint files? If so, the files could have been deleted already. But luckily, you could still recover deleted SharePoint files from the Recycle bin.

Step 1. Go to the original SharePoint site (where the files were deleted from) > click Recycle bin on the toolbar.

Step 2. Select the deleted SharePoint files > click Restore.

If you find no deleted SharePoint files in the Recycle bin, they might have been permanently deleted. Please move on to the next method.

How to recover deleted SharePoint files directly and easily

Users who use SharePoint to collaborate with colleagues will not be unfamiliar with the data loss issues from computers.

Some of them choose to back up important data frequently. But for the sake of saving storage space and exorbitant costs, many users don’t do it.

Thus, considerable users are being bothered by seeking methods to recover permanently deleted files in Windows since they don’t have any backups.

Luckily, they could turn to professional and efficient Windows data recovery apps. For instance, MyRecover, a useful and effective data rescue tool, facilitates users to scan and recover deleted files from computers in 3 simple steps.

Step 1. Install and run the software > hover the mouse over the source drive where the deleted files previously stayed > click Scan.

Step 2. File searching and sorting can help you target your files quickly. You could use filters: Size, Type, Date modified, path, etc., to locate them.

Step 3. Go to Deleted files> go to the original location > find and select your wanted files > click Recover x files. Or go to Other missing files > select a certain type to restore.

You could use it to recover deleted files or folders in OneDrive as well.

Wrap things up

SharePoint files disappear issue could be properly settled with the provided solutions in this post.

For those SharePoint files missing due to permission settings, users could contact the owner and re-obtain the files; for files lost due to filters, or place changes, users could re-check and search their files.

If the SharePoint data was deleted, please go to the Recycle bin or turn to a data rescuer.