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Restore a deleted desktop flow

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This article provides solutions and workarounds to fully or partially recover a deleted desktop flow.

Note

The solutions and workarounds provided in this article apply to users who sign in with work or school accounts, or organization premium accounts.

Fully restore a deleted desktop flow

Restore a deleted desktop flow with a solution or an environment backup.

Restore with solutions

As a prerequisite, the deleted desktop flow should be part of a solution that was previously exported locally.

To restore the flow, import the solution that contains the deleted flow. Learn more at import a solution.

Restore with an environment backup

To restore the deleted flow through a Power Platform environment backup:

  1. Create a new Power Platform environment.
  2. Restore a backup of the deleted flow’s environment to the new target environment. Learn more at restore environments.
  3. In the new environment, create a new solution and add the desktop flow.
  4. Export the solution locally.
  5. Go back to the initial pre-existing environment with the missing flow and import the solution.

Partially restore a deleted desktop flow

You can partially restore a deleted desktop flow using local flow run data or audit logs.

Important

Only the flow actions can be retrieved with this workaround. Any other flow dependencies such as UI elements, images, and connection references can't be retrieved.

Restore from local flow run data

Prerequisites
  • The flow was deleted from the Power Automate portal (not from the Power Automate console).
  • The flow was run locally from the Power Automate console at least once.
Recover actions of the deleted flow

To recover the actions of the deleted flow:

  1. Open %localappdata%\Microsoft\Power Automate Desktop\Console\Workspace\<deleted desktop flow id>\<random string>\script.robin with notepad.

  2. Copy all the lines right under the text @SENSITIVE.

    If the flow is segregated into multiple subflows, then:

    • For the Main subflow, copy all the lines under text @SENSITIVE (not included) and before the text FUNCTION <subflow_name_1> (not included).
    • For each of the other subflows, copy all the lines between FUNCTION <subflow_name_x> (included) and END FUNCTION (included).

  3. Open the Power Automate console and create a new flow.

  4. Paste the lines of the Main subflow in the main workspace of the designer. Right-click on the main workspace and select Paste.

  5. Paste the lines of each subflow in the Subflows section of the designer. Right-click on the Subflows section on top of the workspace and select Paste.

Restore from environment audit logs

Prerequisites

Verify auditing is enabled in both the environment and the Process Dataverse table.

Check if auditing is enabled

To check if auditing is enabled:

  1. Go to Power Platform Admin Center > Environments > your_environment_name > Settings > Audit and logs.
  2. Open Audit settings and verify Start Auditing is enabled.
  3. Open Entity and field audit settings > filter for All tables > search for the Process table > Properties > Advanced options. In the For this table section, verify Audit changes to its data is enabled.
Recover actions of the deleted flow

To recover the actions of the deleted flow:

  1. Go to Power Platform Admin Center > Environments > your_environment_name > Settings > Audit and logs > Audit summary view.
  2. Filter by Delete events in the Process entity to locate the event that deleted the flow.
  3. Select the Delete event to open the record.
  4. Copy the Definition field to a text editor and replace all the \r\n characters with new lines. Create a new line for each set of \r\n characters.
  5. Follow the same steps as described in Restore from local run data starting from step #2.