Restoring Files and Folders

You can use the Veeam Backup & Replication console to restore individual files and folders from Veeam Agent backups.

The procedure of file-level restore from a Veeam Agent backup is similar to the same procedure for a VM backup. To learn more about file-level restore, see the Restore from Microsoft Windows File Systems and Restore from Linux, Unix and Other File Systems sections in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Consider the following:

• [For backups of Microsoft Windows computers] For file-level restore, you can only use Veeam Agent backups stored in a Veeam backup repository or Veeam Cloud Connect repository. For Veeam Agent backups created in the cloud repository, you can perform restore tasks in Veeam Backup & Replication deployed on the tenant backup server. The service provider cannot perform restore tasks with Veeam Agent backups.
• [For backups of Linux, Unix and Mac computers] For file-level restore, you can only use Veeam Agent backups stored in a Veeam backup repository.
• [For backups of Microsoft Windows computers] Before you start file-level restore from a backup of a failover cluster, make sure that the cluster is added to a protection group in the Veeam Backup & Replication inventory. The failover cluster may be not present in the inventory, for example, in the following cases:

• The original protection group that contained the cluster was removed from Veeam Backup & Replication.
• You want to restore cluster data from a backup created on another backup server and imported in the Veeam backup console.

In this case, add the failover cluster whose data you want to restore to a protection group.

• [For backups of Linux, Unix and Mac computers] When you perform the file-level restore procedure, Veeam Backup & Replication provides the following options for mounting disks of the machine from the backup or replica:

• Mounting disks to a helper host — any Linux host from your infrastructure with a supported operating system. Starting from Veeam Backup & Replication 12.1, you can also mount disks from the Veeam Agent for Linux backup to the original host.
• Mounting disks to a temporary helper appliance — a helper VM required to mount Linux computer disks from the backup.

If you have selected to mount disks to a temporary helper appliance, it is recommended that you add a vCenter Server and not a standalone ESXi host in the Veeam backup console. If Veeam Backup & Replication is set up to deploy a helper appliance on a standalone ESXi host, after Veeam Backup & Replication removes the helper appliance, the helper VM will be displayed in vCenter as orphaned.

• [For backups of Mac computers] You cannot restore files or folders from Veeam Agent for Mac backup to the original machine. You can only save files and folders to a new location over the network by using the Copy To option.
• [For backups of Microsoft Windows computers] You cannot restore files or folders from Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows backup to another Veeam Agent computer. You can restore files and folders to the original location or copy them to the machine where the Veeam Backup & Replication console is installed or to a network shared folder.