This article describes how you can manage a user's OneDrive when you delete the user's Microsoft 365 account for your organization, and what steps happen automatically.
Deleting a user from the Microsoft 365 admin center
When you delete a user from the Active users page in the Microsoft 365 admin center, you can choose what you want to do with the user's product licenses, email, and OneDrive. For more info, see Delete a user from your organization.
If you give another user access to the OneDrive, that user will have 30 days by default to access and download the files they want to keep. (To change the retention time, see Set the OneDrive retention for deleted users.) They'll receive an email with a link to these instructions for accessing the deleted user's OneDrive: Copy files from another user's OneDrive.
Configure automatic access delegation
By default, when a user is deleted, the user's manager is automatically given access to the user's OneDrive. Follow these steps to confirm that this automatic access delegation is enabled for your organization, and to set a secondary owner in case a user doesn't have a specified manager. If access delegation is disabled or a manager or secondary owner isn't set for a user, no one will have automatic access when the user is deleted or be warned that the OneDrive will be deleted.
Go to More features in the new SharePoint admin center, and sign in with an account that has admin permissions for your organization.
Note
If you have Office 365 operated by 21Vianet (China), sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center, then browse to the SharePoint admin center and open the More features page.
Under User profiles, select Open.
Under My Site Settings, select Setup My Sites.
Next to My Site Cleanup, make sure Enable access delegation is selected.
We recommend that you also specify a secondary owner account in the My Site Cleanup section. This account will be the appointed owner of the OneDrive if the user's manager isn't set in Microsoft Entra ID. Email notifications will also be sent to the secondary owner account when the value is populated.
Select OK.
The OneDrive deletion process
The OneDrive retention period for cleanup of OneDrive begins when a user account is deleted from Microsoft Entra ID. No other action will cause the cleanup process to occur, including blocking the user from signing in or removing the user's license. For info about removing a user's license, see Remove licenses from users in Microsoft 365 for business.
The OneDrive deletion process works as follows:
A user is deleted from the Microsoft 365 admin center or is removed through Active Directory synchronization.
The account deletion is synchronized to SharePoint.
The OneDrive Clean Up Job runs, and the OneDrive is marked for deletion. The deleted user will appear in the Microsoft 365 admin center for 30 days. The default retention period for OneDrive is also 30 days, but you can change this in the SharePoint admin center (see Set the OneDrive retention for deleted users) or by using the PowerShell cmdlet Set-SPOTenant -OrphanedPersonalSitesRetentionPeriod <int32>. For more information about using this cmdlet, see Set-SPOTenant.
If a manager is specified for the deleted user, the manager will receive an email telling them they have access to the OneDrive, and that the OneDrive will be deleted at the end of the OneDrive retention period. For info about specifying a user's manager in the Microsoft Entra admin center, see Add or update a user's profile information.
If a manager isn't specified for the user account, but a secondary owner was entered in the SharePoint admin center, the secondary owner will receive an email telling them they have access to the OneDrive, and that the OneDrive will be deleted at the end of the retention period.
Seven days before the OneDrive retention period expires, a second email will be sent to the manager or secondary owner as a reminder that the OneDrive will be deleted in seven days.
After seven days, the OneDrive for the deleted user is moved to the site collection recycle bin, where it is kept for 93 days. During this time, users will no longer be able to access any shared content in the OneDrive. To restore the OneDrive, you need to use PowerShell. For info, see Restore a deleted OneDrive.
Note
The Recycle Bin is not indexed and therefore searches do not find content there. This means that an eDiscovery hold can't locate any content in the Recycle Bin in order to hold it.
Microsoft 365 retention settings from retention policies and retention labels always take precedence to the standard OneDrive deletion process, so content included for OneDrive retention could be deleted before 30 days or retained for longer than the OneDrive retention period. Likewise, if a OneDrive is put on hold as part of an eDiscovery case, managers and secondary owners will be sent email about the pending OneDrive deletion, but the OneDrive won't be deleted until the hold is removed.
If my understanding is right, the answer is Yes, generally, when you sync files from SharePoint Document library to the local, and then if you delete the file in OneDrive sync client, the action will also be synced to SharePoint Online, so the file in SharePoint Document library will also be deleted.
The default retention period for OneDrive is also 30 days, but you can change this in the SharePoint admin center (see Set the OneDrive retention for deleted users) or by using the PowerShell cmdlet Set-SPOTenant -OrphanedPersonalSitesRetentionPeriod <int32> .
A 93-day retention period spans both the first- and second-stage recycle bins. At the end of 93 days, the document is permanently deleted from wherever it resides, in either the first-stage or second-stage Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin is not indexed and therefore unavailable for searching.
If a paid subscription ends or is terminated, Microsoft retains customer data stored in Microsoft 365 in a limited-function account for 90 days to enable the subscriber to extract the data. After the 90-day retention period ends, Microsoft disables the account and deletes the customer data.
You won't lose files or data by unlinking OneDrive from your computer. You can always access your files by signing in to OneDrive.com. Select the OneDrive cloud in your notification area to show the OneDrive pop-up. Select the OneDrive Help and Settings icon then select Settings.
Files deleted from OneDrive are kept in the OneDrive Recycle Bin for 30 days for personal accounts. The files can be restored to OneDrive before then, or you can permanently delete them from your OneDrive.
OneDrive is different from the consumer OneDrive service in that OneDrive is based on SharePoint and is meant for storing a user's business documents and files. Consumer OneDrive is a separate service that is meant for personal use.
If you accidentally delete a site collection, it can be restored by a global or SharePoint admin using the SharePoint admin center. Deleted site collections are retained for 93 days. After 93 days, sites and all their content and settings are permanently deleted, including lists, libraries, pages, and any subsites.
OneDrive suits individual file management needs, while SharePoint empowers teams and businesses to take their collaboration, productivity, and knowledge sharing to a higher level.
Uninstalling the OneDrive application from your PC does not delete the files stored in your OneDrive folder. Those files remain on your device and are accessible through File Explorer. However, any changes to these files will no longer synchronize with the cloud since the syncing client is removed.
OneDrive files that get deleted are available in the first or second stage recycle bin for a total of 93 days. Users can restore the deleted file from the first stage recycle bin and administrators can access the file and restore it from the second stage recycle bin.
After 7 days, the OneDrive for the deleted user is moved to the site collection recycle bin and kept for an additional 93 days. The default retention period for OneDrive sites marked for deletion is 30 days. You can extend the retention period either in the OneDrive admin center or by using PowerShell.
Scenario: By default, SharePoint items are automatically retained and then deleted after five years, but documents in specific libraries must be retained for ten years.
Scenario: By default, SharePoint items are automatically retained and then deleted after five years, but documents in specific libraries must be retained for ten years.
Microsoft fully backs up each site collection, every 12 hours with each backup retained for 14 days. This means within the 14 days window, restoration can be done for entire Site Collection to a point or date in the request.
In SharePoint in Microsoft 365, items are retained for 93 days from the time you delete them from their original location. They stay in the site Recycle Bin the entire time, unless someone deletes them from there or empties that Recycle Bin.
Introduction: My name is Jonah Leffler, I am a determined, faithful, outstanding, inexpensive, cheerful, determined, smiling person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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