Backing Up Microsoft 365 and OneDrive: How to Ensure Your Cloud Data Is Truly Backed Up

Does my local backup also protect Microsoft 365?

Yes. With the “Back up OneDrive and Google Drive” feature, Langmeier Backup includes your cloud folders in the backup and stores them on a real backup target — such as an external hard drive or a NAS. What gets backed up is the locally synchronized folder where the Microsoft or Google client keeps your cloud files available. The same applies to SharePoint.

Mailboxes and Teams are created in Microsoft 365 itself; this approach doesn't reach them. If you run your own Exchange server on-site, you deliberately include its database files in the backup job.

OneDrive is a mirror, not a backup

OneDrive is a synchronization service: it keeps your folders on all devices and in the cloud at the same state. A second, independent copy isn't created in the process. Whatever you delete locally, or whatever ransomware encrypts, is deleted or encrypted in the cloud seconds later. The service propagates damage just as reliably as an intentional change.

That's why you back up your cloud folders additionally with a real backup. Langmeier Backup keeps multiple backup versions. After damage occurs, you fall back on a version from before: the day before the encryption, the week before the accidental deletion. That's exactly what a synchronization service can't do, because it only knows the current state. That's the difference between synchronizing and backing up.

Both together make for a complete solution: OneDrive keeps your files up to date on all devices, and Langmeier Backup preserves the versions you can fall back on in an emergency.

Data in Microsoft 365 needs a second home

All accounts in an organization hang on a central access point, the tenant. In everyday use, that's convenient: one administration, one login, one subscription. But that access point can be locked — through a billing dispute, through an automatic security measure, or through a hacked administrator account. Then all accounts are affected at the same time.

That's exactly where backing up your cloud folders pays off: the copy sits on your own hardware and stays reachable even if the access point is locked. Langmeier Backup supports multiple targets — a second backup target at a different location increases security even further.

OneDrive synchronizes — the backup with multiple versions is created by Langmeier Backup.