Applies ToOneNote for Microsoft 365 OneNote 2024 OneNote 2021 OneNote 2016

If you back up your notebooks before you lose or delete important information, you can restore notes if you ever need to.

Restoring notes is a valuable tool, but you’ll have to set up automatic backups or manually back up your notebooks if you want to restore them later.

  1. Click File > Info > Open Backups.

  2. In the Open Backup dialog box, double-click the folder of the notebook you want to restore, select the notebook section you want, and then click Open.

    OneNote now displays the Open Sections area, where you can review the pages in the section you just opened from your backup files.

  3. To restore notes, do either of the following:

    • To restore the entire backed-up section, right-click its section tab and then click Move or Copy.

    • To restore only specific pages from the backed-up section, right-click the page tabs you want and then click Move or Copy.

  4. In the Move or Copy dialog box, select where the backed-up section or pages should be placed, and then click Copy.

  5. When your notes have been restored, right-click the backed-up section and click Close.

  6. Re-select your original notebook from the Notebooks list to continue working in it.  

When you’re restoring notes from a backup, the Move command in the Move or Copy dialog box won’t be available. This prevents you from ever accidentally deleting any parts of a backup that you might need again later.

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