How to back up SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites using RecoveryManager Plus

In this article:

• Objective
• Prerequisites
• Steps to back up SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites
• Related topics and articles

Objective

This article explains how to use RecoveryManager Plus, a comprehensive backup tool for SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, to configure and perform site data backups. It guides administrators in securely protecting their site data by setting up automated backup schedules, simplifying site selection, applying customizable retention policies, and ensuring secure backups with encryption. It allows administrators to safeguard essential site data and quickly restore it in case of accidental deletion or corruption.

Prerequisites

• A Microsoft 365 tenant configured in RecoveryManager Plus.
• The account used to configure a tenant in RecoveryManager Plus must be assigned the SharePoint Administrator role.

Steps to back up SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites

1. Log in to RecoveryManager Plus as an administrator.
2. Navigate to the SharePoint & OneDrive tab > Backup Settings.
3. Click the Create Backup button located in the top-right corner of the screen.
4. Select the Tenant that contains the SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business sites you wish to back up.
5. Provide a name for the backup schedule.
6. In the Select Sites field, choose the sites you want to back up by clicking the add icon or import them from a CSV file by clicking the import icon .
7. In the pop-up that appears, RecoveryManager Plus provides two views to see the list of sites in your Microsoft 365 tenant: Tree View and List View.
   • Tree View is the default view, that displays a hierarchical view of your sites and subsites. Select the sites that you want to back up by marking the check box beside the site name. To exclude child sites from being backed up, check the Don't inherit child sites check box. You can also search for a particular site by its URL or name in the search bar at the top.
   • List View displays all sites and subsites in alphabetical order. Use the search icon to find specific sites for backup. You can select all the sites by selecting the check box beside the Title text.
     • Click the Filter by Criteria option available at the top-right corner of the Select Sites popup to filter sites based on certain conditions.
     • You can filter based on attributes like Site Title, Site URL, Site Type, Parent Site, or Sites. You can also apply conditions such as Starts with, Ends with, Contains, or Does not contain for the selected attribute. Add more conditions using the add icon .
     • You can also decide the type of the condition (AND/OR) when you have multiple conditions. You can remove the conditions set using the close icon .
   • Click OK when you’ve selected all the sites you want to back up.
8. If you wish to back up Microsoft Teams channels, enable the Teams Channel Backup toggle.
9. If you wish to automate the backup schedule based on certain conditions, enable the Automate Site Selection toggle bar.
   • Set the conditions based on the options (Site Title, Site URL, Site Type, Parent Site, or Sites) in the Automation Settings popup. A schedule will run every day to discover the created, modified, and deleted sites, and these sites will be validated against the condition set. If any of these sites satisfies the conditions, it is automatically added to the selected backup job.
   • Select the Validate existing sites selection with automation criteria check box to periodically validate the existing sites in this backup schedule against the criteria and add sites that satisfy the criteria and remove sites that don't satisfy the criteria.
10. Select the desired frequency at which the schedule must run from the options available in the Backup Frequency drop-down:
    • Daily: Scheduler will run once every day at the scheduled time.
    • Weekly: Scheduler will run once every week on the specified day and time.
    • Monthly: Scheduler will run once a month on the specified date and time.
11. Select the repository in which you wish to store the backups from the Select Repository drop-down.
12. In the Item-Level Retention field, enter the number of days/months/years for which your SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business backups should be stored. To learn more about how RecoveryManager Plus processes item-level retention, click here.

    Note: The minimum item-level retention for SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business backups is 30 days.

13. If you wish to encrypt your backup data, check the Encrypt backup data check box and provide the Encryption Key.
14. Click Save to save the scheduler, and the backup will run at the specified time.
15. Click Save & Run to save the scheduler and trigger the first backup process immediately.
16. Click Cancel to exit the configuration screen.
    1

     

    Choose the sites to include in the backup schedule

    1

     

    Configure the schedule and frequency for the backup to run

    

    Figure 1: Backing up SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites in RecoveryManager Plus.

    Choose the sites to include in the backup schedule
    Configure the schedule and frequency for the backup to run

By following these steps, you can securely back up SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites with RecoveryManager Plus.

Once you’ve configured a backup schedule, you can perform the following actions:

• Edit the backup schedule: Click the edit icon under the Action column of the corresponding backup schedule.
• Enable or disable the backup schedule: Click the enable icon /disable icon under the Action column of the backup schedule that you wish to enable or disable.
• Manually trigger a backup: Click the backup now icon under the Action column of the backup schedule to trigger a backup.
• Stop a backup: Click Stop under the Last Run Status column of the backup schedule to stop the backup operation.
• Delete the backup schedule: Click the delete icon under the Action column of the backup schedule that you wish to delete.

Related topics and articles

• How to restore SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites
• How to back up Microsoft Teams sites
• How to download and export Microsoft Teams sites

Last updated on: 23-05-2025