How To Recover OneNote Files? – Complete Guide

OneNote is a great application for keeping all your notes in one place. It has cloud backup and sync, which makes accessing your notes from anywhere much simpler. However, what will you do if somehow all your locally saved OneNote files get deleted?

If something like this has happened to you, don’t worry as here I have discussed how to recover OneNote files. Try the methods mentioned here and see whether you are able to recover the deleted OneNote files.

Preventive Measures

Before we discuss how to recover deleted OneNote, let’s first see how you can better prepare for such issues for the future. Here are some preventive measures you should always follow to avoid a complete data wipe of your notes.

1) Enable Automatic Backup On OneNote

The best way to avoid a complete wipeout of the saved files is to enable to automatic backup feature on OneNote. Once you enable this feature, OneNote will backup the saved notes automatically. To enable the automatic backup feature, follow the steps given below:

1. Open OneNote.
2. Locate the File option on the upper left side and click on it.
3. Select the Options button from the File menu.
4. Check the Automatically back up my notebook at the following time interval box in the Backup section.
5. Change the Time interval as it suits you.
6. Click on the Save & Backup option from the left panel.
7. In the Save section, click on the Backup Folder option.
8. Select Modify.
9. Now, in the Select Folder section you can choose to either backup the OneNote files to a local place on your network or external storage.
10. Click on Select and navigate to the new location.
11. Select OK to save the changes.

Once you have completed this, OneNote will automatically backup all your files on your computer’s hard drive.

2) Manual Backup Every Few Days

Other than setting OneNote for automatic backup, you can also back up the notes manually and move them to external storage for extra safety. To manually backup your OneNote notes, follow the steps given below:

1. Open OneNote.
2. Locate the File option on the upper left side and click on it.
3. Select the Options button from the File menu.
4. Click on the Save & Backup option from the left panel.
5. In the Backup section, click on the Back Up All Notebooks Now option.
6. Now, move the backed up files to any external storage, where the file will remain safe.

How To Recover OneNote Files?

There are a few ways you can recover OneNote files. Here I have explained them in detail, go over them and see if you are able to back up the OneNote deleted notes.

1) Recover Notes From Backup On Your PC

If the notes are deleted from your OneNote account, the files may still be backed up on the PC. OneNote has an automatic backup feature that backs up the notes on your PC. If you have enabled it previously, you can simply restore the data from there. To restore the backed up data, follow the steps given below:

1. Open OneNote and click on the File option.
2. Select the Info option from the File menu.
3. Click on the Open Backups option. A new window will open.
4. In the new window, each folder represents a OneNote notebook backed up on your PC.
5. Open the folder you want to backup and select the notebook backup file.
6. Click on Open.
7. If your deleted notes are present, right-click on the section tab or individual page tab and select Move or Copy to restore them to their original location.

2) Recover Deleted Notes Uploaded On OneDrive

If the notes were stored on OneDrive before getting deleted, try the following steps and see if they can be recovered:

1. First, you will have to open the shared notebook that had your lost notes.
2. Select the View tab and click on the Deleted Notes option.
3. If you find your lost notes in the Deleted Notes section, right-click on the Page tab that you want to restore and select the Move or Copy option to restore the notes in their original location.

If the notes were deleted in the past 60 days, they should appear in the Notebook recycle bin. Unless the Recycle bin was cleared.

Wrapping Up

So, there you have it. Now you know how to recover OneNote files on your PC. If you have any questions regarding this topic, ask them in the comment section below.