MS Forms field deletion

Hi Reginald,

Thank you for sharing the details of your situation. I understand how important this particular field and its responses are for your event. 

As this is a user-to-user community forum, I do not have the ability to directly access or modify your account or service. However, I can provide guidance, recommend next steps, share applicable resources, and direct you to the appropriate support channels so the issue can be investigated further.    

When a question is deleted from Microsoft Forms, the question and the response data collected for it are permanently removed from the form. Microsoft Forms does not currently provide a recycle bin or a built-in option to restore an individual deleted question.  

• You may also refer to this Microsoft article: How do I delete a question in a form? | Microsoft Support 

However, there are a few places you can check to determine whether the previously collected data is still available:

1/ Check the connected Excel workbook 

• If the form was created in Excel for the web or OneDrive for work or school and its responses were already synchronized with an Excel workbook, the data previously collected for the deleted question may still remain in the corresponding column. 
• You can open the form, go to View responses, and select Open results in Excel to check.
• 

2/ Check previously downloaded Excel files 

• If you or another form owner exported the responses before the question was deleted, please review those files to see whether the missing field and its response data are still available. 

3/ Check the Excel workbook’s version history 

• If the connected workbook is stored in OneDrive or SharePoint, locate the file, select More options (...) > Version history, and open a version saved before the question was deleted. If the missing data is available, save it as a separate copy rather than replacing the current workbook.

Additional guidance:

• Restore a previous version of a file stored in OneDrive
• Restore a previous version of an item or file in SharePoint

If no connected workbook, previous export, or earlier workbook version contains the missing data, unfortunately, the deleted question and its responses may not be recoverable directly from Microsoft Forms. 

For future events, it may be helpful to export or back up the responses periodically, especially when the form contains critical information. 

I hope you are able to locate the missing data in the Excel workbook or one of its earlier versions. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to share them in the comment below. I'm very happy to help.  

If the answer is helpful, please click 'Yes' and kindly upvote it.

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