How to Recover a Microsoft Form After the Creator Account Is Deleted
Question details
The user needs to recover a Microsoft Form and its collected responses that were created by a former employee whose user account has been deleted.
- Product
- Microsoft Forms
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- A former employee's user account was deleted from the organization's system, causing their associated Microsoft Form and its collected response data to become completely inaccessible.
- Observed behavior
- The Microsoft Form and all of its previously collected responses are unavailable and cannot be accessed. Once the account passes the 30-day recovery window, the data is permanently erased.
Verify exactly when the former employee's account was deleted, as Microsoft 365 only offers a strict 30-day soft-deletion window for user account and data recovery.
Contact a Microsoft 365 Administrator to Restore the Account
If the user account was deleted within the last 30 days, an IT administrator can restore the account to regain access to the Microsoft Form.
Microsoft retains deleted user accounts in a soft-deleted state for 30 days. During this window, restoring the account will also restore all associated data, including Microsoft Forms and collected responses.
Reach out to your organization's IT department or Microsoft 365 Administrator immediately and provide the email address of the deleted user.
Request the administrator to log into the Microsoft 365 admin center, navigate to the 'Deleted users' section, select the former employee's account, and choose 'Restore user'.
Once the account is successfully restored, log in with the restored credentials, navigate to Microsoft Forms, and verify that the form and its responses are intact.
Immediately transfer the ownership of the recovered form to an active Microsoft 365 Group so it remains accessible even if the user account is deleted again.
Prevent Data Loss by Transferring Ownership Proactively
If the account is already permanently deleted past the 30-day window, the data cannot be retrieved. To avoid this scenario in the future, always transfer ownership before removing an account.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can Microsoft Support restore a form if the creator's account was deleted more than 30 days ago?
No. Once the 30-day soft-deletion window passes, the user account and all associated Microsoft Forms data are permanently purged from Microsoft's servers. Support teams cannot bypass this permanent deletion to recover the data.
What happens to the submitted responses if a Microsoft Form is permanently deleted?
All previously collected responses are permanently deleted alongside the form. If the response data was not exported to an Excel spreadsheet and saved to a secure, shared location before the account deletion, the data is entirely lost.
How do I transfer a Microsoft Form to another person?
You cannot directly transfer a form's ownership to another individual user account. Instead, you must move the form to a Microsoft 365 Group. Open the form, click 'More form settings' (the three dots), select 'Move', and choose the appropriate group.
Can an administrator access a departed user's forms without logging into their account?
Yes, if the account is still active or within the 30-day recovery period, an administrator can generate a specific administrative URL to access the departed user's forms. They can append the departed user's email address to the standard Microsoft Forms admin URL to manage or move the data.
