Azure File Share Soft Delete Lifecycle

Soft delete acts as a safety net against accidental or malicious deletion of Azure file shares. When enabled at the storage account level, a deleted file share enters a soft-deleted state for a configurable retention period before being permanently purged. The retention period can be set between 1 and 365 days, and Azure Backup enforces a minimum 14-day retention for accounts it protects to meet security best practices.

Recovering a soft-deleted file share is an undelete operation that restores the share, its contents, and all associated snapshots to their exact state immediately before deletion. It is important to note that soft delete protects the share itself, not individual files within it. For file-level recovery, you must use share snapshots or Azure Backup.