Providing an information processing apparatus and information processing method that prevent the occurrence of inconsistencies between restored files and other files, thereby improving ease of use. When restoring a backup virtual tree, the owner of each file and directory belonging to the backup virtual tree is identified; and when it is found, based on the identification result, that the owner of any of the files or directories is not a target user and the update time and/or version of the backup file or directory is older than that of the corresponding present file or directory, the backup file or directory is restored back into a special directory accessible for the target user with the tree structure of the original virtual tree intact.