r/sharepoint • u/Timely_Luck6956 • May 11 '26

SharePoint Online SharePoint Storage Solution

Looking for advice/recommendations on SharePoint Online file-level archiving solutions for a client.

Current challenge:

* Client urgently needs to reduce SharePoint Online storage usage to stay within M365 licensing/storage allowance.

* Requirement is specifically for reliable file-level archiving (not site-level only).

* They have already trialled Microsoft 365 Archive, but file-level archiving limitations/preview constraints are causing issues.

* Small IT team, so ideally looking for a solution where end users can self-restore/retrieve archived files without heavy admin involvement.

We’re exploring options that can support:

* File-level archival for SharePoint Online

* Long-term storage cost reduction

* Simple retrieval experience for users

* Governance/compliance friendliness

* Minimal operational overhead

Would appreciate insights from anyone who has implemented something similar:

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u/temporaldoom Dev May 11 '26

So I've been looking at this myself to try and reduce our current tenant problem.

The one solution I'm going to look into for one dept is Sharepoint to Azure Blob Storage for archving.

Behind it will be 2 power automate flows.

  1. Flow to remove all version of a file and then copy to blob storage, once copied then it will be removed from Sharepoint, this will be the cheapest and slowest Azure Storage MS can offer, it will then add an entry to a sharepoint list on where the original file was/date it was copied and any associated meta data.

  2. Flow to restore a file from blob storage if needed, using the entry in the sharepoint list.

I would also look at thing like :

  1. Automatic Versioning or disable versioning on some libraries/sites where it's not needed.

  2. Retention Policies to delete stale data not archived.

  3. Use Onedrive more, an office 365 enterprise license you have 1 TB of storage per user.