In this SharePoint Online tutorial, we will discuss how to solve couldn’t restore site we couldn’t find the office 365 group connected to this site error which comes while trying to restore SharePoint Online site from the admin center recycle bin.
Recently, I was trying to restore a site which was deleted before sometime from SharePoint Online admin center, but it gave error as “couldn’t restore site we couldn’t find the office 365 group connected to this site“. The error looks like below:

we couldn’t find the microsoft 365 group connected to this site
I was trying to restore the SharePoint Online modern site from SharePoint Online Admin Center.
The admin center URL:
https://<tenant-name>-admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/AdminHome.aspx#/recycleBin
In my case I have deleted the associated Office 365 group and which was causing the issue. There can also be another reason for the error like the Owner assigned to the SharePoint Online Site may not be available or deleted from the tenant.
So instead of restoring the site from GUI, We can do restore the SharePoint site using SharePoint Online Management Shell or PowerShell.
Restore SharePoint Online site using PowerShell
Now, we will see how we can restore the SharePoint Online site using SharePoint Online Management Shell.
Open SharePoint Online Management Shell and then run the below commands.
Note: Restore-SPODeletedSite PowerShell cmdlet helps to restore deleted SharePoint Online sites.
Connect-SPOService -Url https://onlysharepoint2013-admin.sharepoint.com -credential bijay@onlysharepoint2013.onmicrosoft.com
Restore-SPODeletedSite -Identity https://onlysharepoint2013.sharepoint.com/sites/tausif
The PowerShell command should look like below:

Once you Run the above command, the SharePoint Online site will be restored. And the error Couldn’t restore site will not appear.
Restore a deleted Office 365 Group
Apart from the above solution, you can also restore the deleted Office 365 group and then you can try restoring the SharePoint Online deleted site.
To restore a deleted Office 365 group follow the below steps.
We can restore Office 365 Groups from the Exchange admin center.
Open Microsoft 365 Admin Center and then expand the Admin center, and then choose Exchange.

Then in the Exchange Admin Center, click on recipients and then choose Groups.
Then you can see all the Groups, chose the particular group and click on “Click here to restore button” like below:

If you’ve deleted an Office 365 group, by default it’s retained for 30 days. This 30-day period is called “soft-delete” because you can still restore the group. After 30 days, the group and associated content is permanently deleted and cannot be restored.
Once the Office 365 group is restored successfully, you can now restore the SharePoint Online site collection.
You may like the following Office 365 tutorials:
- Term Store Management in SharePoint Online Office 365 (Step-by-Step Tutorial)
- Steps to Migrate email from one Office 365 tenant to another Office 365 tenant
- How to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes Emails and Data – eDiscovery Tool
- Delete site collection in SharePoint Online Office 365 and SharePoint 2013/2016/2019
- Error=Value=QuotaExceeded Tag=0x0121d3da SharePoint Online Office 365
- Create Bulk Users in Office 365 (from CSV File)
- What is Shared mailbox in Office 365? How to create and access SharePoint mailbox in Office 365?
- How to Add Nintex forms for Office 365 to SharePoint Online Sites?
- SharePoint Online Office 365 enable or disable user account
- Why Companies are Switching from Google Apps to Office 365
- Microsoft has enabled security defaults to keep your account secure Office 365
I hope this SharePoint tutorial helps to resolve the error: we couldn’t find the microsoft 365 group connected to this site. And we also saw how we can restore an Office 365 group from the Exchange admin center.
I am Bijay a Microsoft MVP (8 times –Â My MVP Profile) in SharePoint and have more than 15 years of expertise in SharePoint Online Office 365, SharePoint subscription edition, and SharePoint 2019/2016/2013. Currently working in my own venture TSInfo Technologies a SharePoint development, consulting, and training company. I also run the popular SharePoint website EnjoySharePoint.com