How to delete and restore SharePoint Online sites

In this post, I’ll show how you can both delete and restore SharePoint Online sites.

Note: You must be a SharePoint administrator or a SharePoint site owner to be able to delete a site, and only SharePoint administrators can restore them.

How to delete a SharePoint site

If you’re a site owner, follow these steps to delete your site:

1. Click the settings wheel in the upper right corner
2. Select Site information
3. Select Delete site
4. Check the confirmation box and then click Delete

If you’re a SharePoint administrator, you can follow these steps to delete a site:

1. Go to the SharePoint admin center (app launcher > Admin > SharePoint)
2. Select Sites > Active sites from the left navigation menu
3. Search or browse and select the site to delete
4. Select Delete from the top ribbon menu
5. Select Delete again in the dialog prompt

A video demonstration of both of these methods is below:

How to restore a SharePoint site

Deleted sites can only be restored within the first 93 days since its deletion. Otherwise, after 93 days, the site is permanently deleted.

Here are the steps a SharePoint admin can follow to restore a previously deleted site:

1. Go to the SharePoint admin center
2. Select Sites > Deleted sites from the left-hand navigation menu
3. Select the specific site to restore
4. Select Restore from the top ribbon menu

A video demonstration of these steps can be found below: