All my sways disappeared!

Question

All my sways disappeared!

Sreeparna Vappala 0

All my Sways have suddenly disappeared. I am getting the following message:

“Your Sway is no longer available. The Sway may have been deleted or sharing permissions may have changed.”

I cannot find anything in my Deleted folder, and I have not been notified of any permission changes. The publicly shared links for the Sways are also not working.

Is there any way to retrieve these?

Thank you!

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Answer 1

Katerina-N 9,300 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello Sreeparna Vappala,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum!

I understand that you are having issue with Sway. I truly understand how you feel. Let me assist you go through this situation.

For me to provide the most accurate solution, would you please let me know few information about the situation you're expiring:

Which Microsoft account did you originally use to create those Sways?
When you open https://sway.cloud.microsoft/ > My Sways, is the list completely empty?
Is the Deleted section inside Sway also empty?
About when did the Sways disappear (approximate date)?
Did you change anything shortly before that (password, account recovery info, device, organization access, or sharing settings)?

I am looking forward for your respond.

Best Regards,

Katerina-N 9,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-05T22:35:51.26+00:00

Hello Sreeparna Vappala,

I wish you all the best today! I am writing this to follow up and see if you need any additional help. Hope everything goes well. If you need further assistance, please feel free to tag me. I will be happy to assist you.
Sreeparna Vappala 0 Reputation points

2026-01-06T01:34:36.8166667+00:00
Hello @Katerina-N

Here are my answers to your questions.

Which Microsoft account did you originally use to create those Sways? I originally created this using my previous institution’s account. When I moved institutions and started a new job, I copied the Sway into my current account, which is my personal account. I may have lost access to the email address I originally used to create it.

When you open https://sway.cloud.microsoft/ > My Sways, is the list completely empty? No, the list is not completely empty. I can see the list of all the sways, just that when I click on it, it shows me an error and doesn't take my sway.

Is the Deleted section inside Sway also empty? The deleted section inside the sway is empty.

About when did the Sways disappear (approximate date)? I noticed that my sway disappeared earlier this year.

Did you change anything shortly before that (password, account recovery info, device, organization access, or sharing settings)? No I did not change the password or any other settings for my personal account.

Thanks,

Sree
Katerina-N 9,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-09T00:04:09.5066667+00:00
Hello Sreeparna Vappala,

Thanks for your cooperation and for the additional details. Let me keep working on this issue with you.

With your situation, I suggest you could try these steps:

Open an InPrivate/Incognito browser window > go to https://sway.cloud.microsoft/ > sign in to your personal Microsoft account > try opening a Sway again.

Sign in at office.com first > open Sway from the app launcher (waffle) > try opening the same Sway from My Sways.

In My Sways, on each Sway tile/list item, click … (More) > choose Duplicate / Move a copy (if shown) to create a new working copy in your personal account.

If any Sway opens even briefly: … > Export > Word/PDF and download backups immediately.

If none open and all show “no longer available”: contact Microsoft Support for Sway and provide (a) your personal account email, (b) 1–3 failing Sway URLs/IDs, (c) screenshot of the titles + error.

If the Sways still belong to your old institution tenant: ask the old institution’s IT admin to try reassigning Sways from the deleted user account (admin-only, time-limited)

I hope this will help with your situation. Please feel free to reach back if you have further update or more questions.

Best Regards,
Sreeparna Vappala 0 Reputation points

2026-01-22T18:34:45.3833333+00:00

Hello @Katerina-N ,

I tried everything as you said, and it doesn't work. Now, I don't even see the list of sways I created in my account.

I had copied the sway from my previous account to here. So, I don't understand why I need to contact the IT admin.

Do you have any way to restore these sways? How can I lose something without proper notice? Is it in the terms and conditions?

Thanks!
Katerina-N 9,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-24T00:03:47.7566667+00:00
Hello Sreeparna Vappala,

I am so sorry for the inconvenient it might cause. I understand your confusing when you don't see the list of sways you created.

Your concerns abour can you restore the Sways? It can only in these two cases:

They were created with your old institution (work/school) account and that tenant can still recover/transfer them. Microsoft’s documented recovery method is tenant IT admin reassigning Sways from a deleted user account, and it’s time-limited (Sways go into a holding state and admins have 30 days after the user is permanently deleted to reassign).

They were created under your personal Microsoft account and Microsoft Support can restore access if it’s a service-side issue. If My Sways/Deleted are empty and links fail, there’s no self-service restore—you must open a Sway support case.

That's will explain for your question: Why do you “need IT admin”?

Because only the old institution’s tenant administrator has the permission/tools to reassign Sways owned by a deleted/removed work/school account. Regular users can’t do this.

And did you “lose something without notice”?

If the old institution account was removed, Sways can become inaccessible and later deleted per that tenant’s lifecycle; shared/edit links can stop working when the owner account is deleted. (Notice is usually handled by the institution/tenant policies; Sway itself doesn’t guarantee proactive individual notifications in these scenarios.)

That's why I suggest you:

If these Sways were originally made at your previous institution: Contact the previous institution’s IT admin and ask them to use Microsoft’s official “Reassign Sways from a deleted user account” process.

If you truly duplicated them into your personal account but now, they’re gone: Open a Microsoft Sway support request and include your personal account email + one failing Sway URL/Lookup ID + approximate date you noticed the loss

Go to Microsoft Support – Contact us: https://support.microsoft.com/contactus

Sign in with the same Microsoft account you use for Sway (Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live, etc.).

In the problem box/search, type Sway (or “Sway unavailable / missing Sways”).

Select Sway from the product/topic choices (or the closest Microsoft 365/Office category that leads to Sway).

Follow the prompts to choose an available support option and submit your issue details.

Please refer to the following link and similar thread:

Do Sways persist if the user account is archived?

Restore or permanently remove recently deleted user - Microsoft Entra | Microsoft Learn

Reassign Sways from a deleted user account - Admin Help - Microsoft Support

Sway Queries - What happens when user account is removed and how can I - Microsoft Community

If you have any updates or further questions, feel free to tag me in your reply so I can assist you more directly. I'll be happy to assist!

Please note that this is a user‑to‑user support forum. Moderators, contributors, and external Microsoft staff cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back‑end systems. Our role is limited to providing technical guidance on reported issues, requests, or ideas. Still, I will do my best to assist you with everything I can.