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Use this page to review customer-facing Microsoft 365 Backup changes. New capabilities remain new for three months after their customer launch date. When a launch date isn't available, the first public documentation date is used. FAQ updates cover material clarifications. Important notices remain listed while the limitation or administrator action is still relevant.
Developer API changes are tracked separately in What's new for Microsoft 365 Backup Storage developers.
New capabilities - Launched within the last three months
New capabilities
Configure backup recovery windows
September 18, 2026
Backup policies can use recovery windows of 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years. Existing policies keep a one-year recovery window unless an administrator changes them.
Note
Shortening a recovery window starts a 30-day grace period before recovery points outside the new window are deleted.
For more information, see Configure the backup recovery window.
Protect full workloads with exclusions (preview)
September 18, 2026
Full Workload Backup can automatically protect eligible SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, or Exchange mailboxes that aren't assigned to a custom policy. The service checks for newly eligible items every 24 hours, gives custom policies precedence, and supports up to 10,000 exclusions in one operation.
For more information, see Full Workload Backup.
Expanded backup scale limits
September 18, 2026
Microsoft 365 Backup supports up to 1,000,000 items per workload, 100 policies per workload, and 100,000 items per policy. If your organization needs higher scale, contact Microsoft.
For more information, see Backup scale limits.
Set up and migrate pay-as-you-go billing in the Microsoft 365 admin center
September 3, 2026
Customers onboarded before April 1, 2026 can use Migrate to move Microsoft 365 Backup pay-as-you-go billing management from Setup or Org settings into the Billing experience in the Microsoft 365 admin center. The Azure subscription, resource group, and region are retained, and existing backups aren't disrupted.
For more information, see Set up pay-as-you-go billing.
Enable Exchange mailbox billing attribution
September 3, 2026
Administrators can consent to include Exchange mailbox identifiers in Azure cost attribution for Microsoft 365 Backup.
Note
MailboxDbGuid is an internal identifier and shouldn't be used as a stable external key.
For more information, see Billing attribution for Exchange mailbox consent.
Notify multiple administrators about backup events
September 3, 2026
Global Administrators and Microsoft 365 Backup Administrators can send daily email digests to as many as 20 recipients, including distribution lists and mail-enabled security groups. Potentially harmful and routine events can be configured separately.
Note
Jobs configured with a 10-minute recovery point objective aren't included. Notifications are sent after the overall policy completes.
For more information, see Enable email notifications.
Browse and restore selected OneDrive and SharePoint content
September 2, 2026
Granular restore is generally available. Microsoft 365 Backup administrators can browse or search a protected restore point, select files and folders, and restore them to the original location or a new timestamped folder. In-place restores inherit destination-folder permissions and provide choices for name conflicts.
Note
The SharePoint Backup Admin role is required.
For more information, see Restore selected content.
Earlier capability updates from the 12-month review
Attribute OneDrive and SharePoint costs by protection unit
April 13, 2026
Azure cost data includes the protectionunitid tag for site-level OneDrive and SharePoint cost attribution.
For more information, see Billing attribution by tenants, service type, and applications.
Use additional administrator roles for pay-as-you-go setup
April 8, 2026
Billing Administrator and AI Administrator are included among the documented roles for pay-as-you-go setup when the required Azure subscription permissions are also present.
For more information, see Set up pay-as-you-go billing for Microsoft 365 Backup.
Connect multiple billing policies
March 3, 2026
Organizations can connect more than one billing policy to Microsoft 365 Backup and divide backup costs among Azure subscriptions.
For more information, see Set up departmental billing.
Manage backup billing by department
February 27, 2026
Departmental billing can associate backup policies with departmental Azure subscriptions and restrict management to administrators with access to the applicable billing policy.
For more information, see Manage consumption and invoices for Microsoft 365 Backup.
Use Microsoft 365 Backup in GCC
February 23, 2026
Microsoft 365 Backup is available for Government Community Cloud organizations.
For more information, see Overview of Microsoft 365 Backup.
Use the pay-as-you-go Billing experience
January 5, 2026
New customers can set up Microsoft 365 Backup pay-as-you-go billing from the Billing node in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
For more information, see Set up pay-as-you-go billing.
Offboard individual protection units in the UI or with workload-specific commands
October 23, 2025
Administrators can permanently delete backups for selected sites, mailboxes, or users from Removed Items and can undo the request during the grace period. Automation can use the workload-specific Microsoft 365 Backup Storage commands.
For more information, see Offboard specific sites, mailboxes, or users.
FAQ updates - New or materially revised customer guidance
FAQ updates
How should restore performance estimates be interpreted?
September 18, 2026
Performance figures are median expectations. OneDrive and SharePoint estimates emphasize express restore points and cumulative throughput of roughly 6,000 sites and accounts per day. Exchange restores typically process about 100 to 500 items per mailbox per minute. Performance tends to fall below the median when item counts exceed fleet medians and can be better for smaller item counts.
For more information, see Restoration performance.
What content isn't supported by granular restore?
September 2, 2026
SharePoint granular restore doesn't support content in Information Rights Management-enabled document libraries or locked SharePoint sites.
For more information, see Considerations when using restore.
How do I recover a permanently inactive mailbox?
September 2, 2026
Use Recover an inactive mailbox. Restore an inactive mailbox doesn't preserve the backup data from the old mailbox.
For more information, see Considerations when using restore.
What should I do when ExternalDirectoryObjectID still exists?
March 20, 2026
The user was deleted less than 30 days ago and remains soft deleted. Restore the user in the Microsoft 365 admin center before continuing the backup restore flow.
For more information, see Restore a deleted user's OneDrive account or Exchange mailbox.
How can I narrow an Exchange granular restore?
February 4, 2026
Search can be filtered by time range, sender, recipient, attachment, subject, and content type. Each restore is limited to 1,000 items, so broad searches need to be refined.
For more information, see Restore data in Microsoft 365 Backup.
Which Exchange recipient types aren't supported?
January 28, 2026
Group mailboxes and room mailboxes can't be added to a Microsoft 365 Backup policy.
For more information, see Create Exchange backup policies.
Important notices - Active limitations and administrator actions
Important notices
Review a shorter recovery window before the grace period ends
September 18, 2026
Decreasing a recovery window is destructive. Recovery points older than the new window are deleted after a 30-day grace period.
For more information, see Configure the backup recovery window.
Don't treat MailboxDbGuid as a stable external identifier
September 3, 2026
The MailboxDbGuid tag used in Azure consumption reporting is intended for Microsoft internal use, and its value might change.
For more information, see Billing attribution for Exchange mailbox consent.
Hybrid Exchange deployments aren't supported
January 24, 2026
Only mailboxes fully hosted in Exchange Online can be protected by Microsoft 365 Backup.
For more information, see Create Exchange backup policies.
Billing setup paths differ for new and existing customers
January 23, 2026
New customers use the Billing experience. Customers whose billing remains under Setup or Org settings can view, edit, or migrate their existing pay-as-you-go configuration from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
For more information, see Set up pay-as-you-go billing.
Some SharePoint site templates can't be protected
December 4, 2025
Unsupported templates include SharePoint Embedded containers, Review Center, Policy Center, tenant admin sites, and MySite Host.
For more information, see Can I back up every type of SharePoint site?.
Turning off pay-as-you-go begins offboarding
November 25, 2025
To disconnect Microsoft 365 Backup billing, turn off Backup from the pay-as-you-go settings. Disabling the tool starts the offboarding process for policies and backed-up data.
For more information, see Offboarding in Microsoft 365 Backup.