A finished project doesn’t need an active team anymore, but the conversations and files in it are often worth keeping. That’s what archiving is for: it freezes a team as read-only so nobody clutters it with new messages, while everything in it stays searchable and accessible. And when a team gets deleted — on purpose at the end of its life, or by accident — you usually have a window to bring it back.
The two operations get confused because both deal with the end of a team’s life, but they’re very different. Archiving is reversible and keeps the team in place, just frozen. Deleting removes the team and its underlying Microsoft 365 group, with a recovery window of about 30 days before it’s permanent. Knowing which one you want — and how to undo each — saves a lot of panic.
This guide covers archiving and reactivating a team, then restoring a deleted team through both the admin centers and PowerShell.
What archiving actually does
When you archive a team, it goes into read-only mode. Members can still open it, read every channel, search the history, and get to the files — they just can’t post new messages, add channels, or change content. The underlying Microsoft 365 group, the SharePoint site, and the mailbox all stay in place. Nothing is deleted.
Because it’s non-destructive and reversible, archiving is the right move for teams that have served their purpose but hold information worth keeping. It cleans up everyone’s active teams list without throwing anything away.
What changes when you archive a team
| Conversations & files | Stay accessible and searchable — read-only |
|---|---|
| New posts / edits | Blocked until the team is reactivated |
| Membership | Unchanged — members remain |
| Microsoft 365 group, SharePoint site, mailbox | All remain in place |
| Reversible? | Yes — reactivate any time |
How to archive a team
Team owners and Teams admins can archive a team. As an owner, from the Teams client:
- Click Teams in the left rail, then Manage teams (the gear or ”…” near the teams list).
- Find the team, open its More options (…), and choose Archive team.
- If the team has a connected SharePoint site, you’ll get the option to make the SharePoint site read-only for members too — tick it if you want files frozen as well, not just chat.
As an admin, from the Teams admin center: go to Teams > Manage teams, select the team, and use the archive action there. The admin center is the better path when you’re tidying up many teams or working on teams you don’t own.
Reactivating an archived team
Archiving is fully reversible. To bring a team back to active:
- Owner: in Manage teams, find the archived team (archived teams are listed separately), open More options (…), and choose Restore team / Unarchive.
- Admin: in the Teams admin center, select the archived team and reactivate it.
Once reactivated, members can post and edit again immediately, and if you’d set the SharePoint site to read-only, that’s lifted too. No content is lost in either direction.
Deleting a team and the recovery window
Deleting a team is the destructive option. It soft-deletes the underlying Microsoft 365 group, which takes the team’s channels, tabs, and the connected SharePoint site and mailbox with it. The key thing to understand: a soft-deleted Microsoft 365 group can be restored for about 30 days. After that window, the group — and the team — are permanently removed.
So a deleted team isn’t instantly unrecoverable. You have roughly a month. But that clock is real, so if a team was deleted by mistake, restore it sooner rather than later.
Restore a deleted team from the Microsoft 365 admin center
The simplest path for most admins is the Microsoft 365 admin center, because restoring a team means restoring its Microsoft 365 group.
- Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Open Teams & groups > Deleted groups (under active teams and groups).
- Find the deleted group that backed your team — it’s listed with its deletion date and remaining recovery time.
- Select it and choose Restore.
The team comes back with its channels, tabs, and files intact, since the group, site, and mailbox are restored together. Give it a little time to fully reappear in the Teams client for members.
Before you restore a deleted team
- Confirm the team is within the ~30-day recovery window
- Identify the exact Microsoft 365 group name that backed the team
- Decide who needs it back and let them know it's coming
- Plan to re-check ownership and membership after restore
Restore a deleted team with PowerShell
For scripted recovery or when you’re restoring as part of a larger cleanup, use the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. Deleted groups live in the directory’s deleted items, and you restore by the group’s object ID.
# Connect with permission to read and restore deleted directory objects
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "Group.ReadWrite.All", "Directory.ReadWrite.All"
# List recently deleted Microsoft 365 groups (within the recovery window)
Get-MgDirectoryDeletedItemAsGroup |
Select-Object DisplayName, Id, DeletedDateTime |
Sort-Object DeletedDateTime -Descending
# Restore the group (and therefore the team) by its object ID
Restore-MgDirectoryDeletedItem -DirectoryObjectId "<group-object-id>"After the group is restored, the team reappears for its members. It’s worth confirming the team still has at least one active owner once it’s back — see the ownership guidance in Teams governance best practices — since a team that was deleted and restored is a good moment to tidy up membership.
Choosing archive or delete
The decision is mostly about whether the content has future value. If a team is finished but you might reference it — a completed project, last year’s event, a disbanded committee whose decisions matter — archive it. The record stays, frozen and searchable, and you can reactivate if work resumes. If a team has no lasting value — a test team, a duplicate, a misfire — delete it and let the recovery window cover any mistake.
For organizations managing this at scale, an expiration policy automates the “delete if abandoned” end of the lifecycle, while archiving remains the deliberate keep-the-record choice. Both fit into a broader plan covered in Teams governance best practices, and if you’re recreating a team after a cleanup, how to create a team in Microsoft Teams walks through doing it cleanly.
Wrapping up
Archiving freezes a team as a read-only record you can reactivate any time — the right call for finished work worth keeping. Deleting removes the team and its Microsoft 365 group, but a soft-deleted group is recoverable for about 30 days through the Microsoft 365 admin center or Graph PowerShell, after which it’s permanent.
Treat the 30-day window as a deadline, not a backup. Restore deleted teams promptly, archive anything with future value instead of deleting it, and re-check ownership whenever a team comes back.
