Find an old flow created by another team member

Question

In Power Automate, I am unable to locate an automation flow that was created by a former team member who has since left the organization. We are trying to access the flow using his email account so that we can recover it and apply the necessary modifications.

Answer 1

Hi @Pranjali Agrawal  

Thank you for explaining your situation regarding a missing Power Automate flow. From your description, it’s clear that your organization relies on automation for its business processes and is now experiencing difficulty locating a flow that was originally created by a team member who has since left the organization. Your goal is to regain access to this flow so it can be reviewed, recovered, and updated as needed. 

Based on how Power Automate is designed, flows are owned by the user account that created them unless additional owners were explicitly assigned. When a user leaves the organization and their account is deleted or disabled, any flows that were not shared or transferred beforehand may no longer be visible to other users. This is why you are unable to locate the flow under your own account or within the shared flows list. 

Attempting to access the flow by signing in with the former team member’s email address will only work if the account still exists and is active in Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD). If the account has been fully deleted, the flow ownership cannot be recovered directly through the Power Automate interface. In such cases, even administrators will not see the flow unless ownership was previously transferred or the flow was stored in a solution within an environment. 

It’s also important to note that Power Automate does not currently provide a built-in feature for automatically reassigning ownership of personal flows after a user leaves. This means recovery options are dependent on administrative actions, such as restoring the user account within the retention window or exporting flows proactively using solutions before account removal. 

Given that this scenario involves Power Automate governance, user lifecycle management, and flow ownership recovery, the Microsoft Power Platform forum would be the most appropriate place to seek further assistance. Community experts and Microsoft moderators can help evaluate whether the flow can still be accessed through administrative recovery options and can also recommend best practices, such as using solutions or shared ownership, to prevent similar issues in the future. 

I hope this explanation helps clarify why the flow is not visible and what options may still be available to recover it. If this response resolves your question, please consider marking it as the Accepted answer so that others facing the same issue can benefit. 

Thank you for being part of the community, and feel free to reach out if you need further guidance.

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Answer 2

To recover and manage a Power Automate flow owned by a former team member, use admin tools rather than trying to sign in with that person’s email.

1. In the Power Platform admin center, open the relevant environment and go to Resources → Flows.
2. Look for the flow in the list. If the former user’s account has been removed or disabled, the flow may appear without a valid owner (an orphaned flow).
3. Select the flow and choose Share.
4. Add a current user (for example, an admin or the new owner) as a co-owner and select Save.
   • After this, the new owner can see and edit the flow in Power Automate under My flows.

If there are many flows or the owner created multiple automations, use PowerShell as an admin:

1. Install the latest Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell module and run PowerShell as administrator.
2. Connect to the environment:

      Add-PowerAppsAccount
   

3. List flows created by the former user (using their object ID):

      Get-AdminFlow -EnvironmentName <env name> -CreatedBy <user-object-id>
   

4. For each flow that needs to be recovered, use Set-AdminFlowOwnerRole (as described in the documentation) to assign a new owner/co-owner.

If the flow was deleted less than 21 days ago, it can be restored instead of recreated:

1. As an admin, either:
   • Build a button flow using the Power Automate Management connector with List Flows as Admin (Include Soft-Deleted Flows = Yes) and then Restore Deleted Flows as Admin, or
   • Use PowerShell:

          # List all flows, including soft-deleted
          Get-AdminFlow -EnvironmentName <env name> -IncludeDeleted $true
          
          # After noting the FlowName of the deleted flow
          Restore-AdminFlow -EnvironmentName <env name> -FlowName <flow-name>
     

2. After restore, the flow is disabled by default; enable it and then update owners as above.

This approach avoids using the former employee’s credentials and ensures the flow is properly owned and maintainable going forward.

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References:

• Manage orphaned flows when the owner leaves the organization
• Restore deleted flows