Azure Soft Delete

Azure Soft Delete gives you a recovery window after a supported resource is deleted. Instead of disappearing immediately, the resource is retained for a period and can be restored.

The exact behaviour depends on the service. Key Vault, Storage, API Management, SQL, Backup, Container Registry, and other Azure services each have their own rules, retention periods, and restore steps.

Soft delete is useful, but it is not a backup strategy by itself. It protects against some accidental deletes. It does not replace tested recovery plans, access control, locks, or a careful look at who can delete production resources.