TechTips - How to Restore a Deleted Item from SharePoint 2007 Website Recycle Bin

I have several clients who run SharePoint 2007 websites on my MOSS 2007 SharePoint Server Farm and they always want to know how to do certain things within SharePoint 2007. One of the most frequent questions is how to recover a document they sent to the recycle bin. It's a pretty simple task that can be performed by anyone with Admin rights, it also depends on the settings for the recycle bin for the specific SharePoint 2007 website (I will explain this more). In this guide I will explain how to restore a document from the recycle bin in a SharePoint 2007 website.

So a few things you will need before you can restore the file to the SharePoint 2007 website, first you will need to be an administrator or site collection admin for the SharePoint 2007 website you want to restore the file to. You will also need to know if the file is recoverable, this will depend on how the settings for the recycle bin are setup within SharePoint 2007.

So first thing you will want to check is the settings for the Recycle Bin for the SharePoint 2007 website, to do this follow these steps:

1. Open Central Admin

2. Click on Application Management Tab

3. Click Web Application General Settings (SharePoint Web Application Management Section)

4. Scroll down to Recycle Bin Section

5. Check settings (should be set to on and #of days to keep items)

Now the files that you are wanting to restore have to be within the #of days to keep files, if this setting is set to 2 days and the files is 3 weeks old you aren't getting the file back. So keep this in mind and make sure if these settings aren't set for a long enough time you correct the settings now.

1. Once you know the file is recoverable then to restore the file follow these steps:

2. Open your website

3. Click on Login (if you aren't logged in already by default)

4. Click on Site Actions (will only appear if you have admin rights to this SharePoint 2007 website)

5. Click Site Settings

6. Click Recycle Bin Link (Under Site Collection Administration Section)

7. Click Check Box next to file/files you want to restore (if nothing is listed file isn't recoverable)

8. Click Restore Selection

Let SharePoint run through the restoration and once it completes it should give you a message saying the files were restored to their original locations. You can go back to your SharePoint 2007website and make sure that the files are back where they belong.

I hope this guide helps you to restore your files from the recycle bin in SharePoint 2007, also make sure your recycle bin settings are properly configured so you won't have problems restoring files if you need to in the future.