Azure VM file level encryption changes

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Azure VM file level encryption changes

Wai-Kit Leung 20

Hi,

I couldn't see any details regarding this, would anyone know if Microsoft play on making changes in the future for us to enable restores from backup that have been file level encrypted?

Were having to do a full restore back the backups when needed and this can be time consuming.

A few third party vendors offer this capabilities from my understanding.

Thanks,
Wai-Kit

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Answer 1

Divyesh Govaerdhanan 2,955

Hello,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

Currently, Azure Backup does not support file-level recovery (FLR) from encrypted Azure VM backups — this includes both Azure Disk Encryption (ADE) and customer-managed keys (CMK) scenarios. As a result, when you need to restore a specific file or folder from a backup of an encrypted VM, you’re limited to:

Restoring the entire VM, or

Restoring the entire disk and manually mounting it to another VM for file extraction.

This is understandably time-consuming, especially for minor recoveries.

If FLR is critical for your use case, consider:

Azure File Share + Azure Backup Use Azure Files for storing data that needs granular restore and enable Azure Backup on the file share. This supports item-level restore and works well alongside VM backups.
Snapshot + Manual Mount Use Azure Backup’s disk snapshot recovery to mount the disk to another VM and extract the required files manually.
Third-Party Solutions As you noted, some third-party vendors (e.g., Commvault, Veeam, Rubrik) provide granular restore for encrypted VMs by installing agents or handling encryption keys in their platform.

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Wai-Kit Leung 20 Reputation points

2025-04-15T08:59:29.14+00:00

Hi Divyesh,

Thanks for the helpful information, we'll take this into consideration.

Would you happen to know if FLR for encrypted Azure VM backups would be considered in the near future by Microsoft?

I'm sure, I'm not the first and last person to ask this. Using third party like Commvault would be ideal, but we want to know if this is something that as been mentioned to Microsoft and their next steps?

Thanks,
Wai-Kit
Divyesh Govaerdhanan 2,955 Reputation points

2025-04-15T13:26:37.4133333+00:00

Hi Wai-Kit-Leung,

Currently, Microsoft has not announced plans to introduce FLR support for encrypted VMs in Azure Backup. While this feature is frequently requested, there is no official roadmap or timeline for its implementation. Please have a look at the link below for the public roadmap updates.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates

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Wai-Kit Leung 20 Reputation points

2025-04-17T12:44:31.2+00:00

Hi Divyesh,

Thanks for the latest reply to my questions.

Regards,
Wai-Kit

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