Use Download content to copy documents and list items from your SharePoint sites and OneDrives to a local drive or a file share.
Index
Prerequisites
- You have site collection admin permissions on the site collection(s) from which you want to download content.
- You are connected to your site collection(s), Microsoft 365 Admin center, or SharePoint central admin.
Note: Site collection admin permissions are required even if you have higher admin privileges like SharePoint admin or Global admin permissions. For more information, see Administrative permissions.
Tip: To manage all your site collections, you can connect to your central admin or admin center with SharePoint admin, farm admin, or global admin permissions.
How-to
- Select the site, library, list, or document you want to download from the Explore screen.
- Click Download in the Quick actions menu at the right.
- Select your preferred configurations.
- Click the Download button.
- Select your download location.
- Click OK.
- The download will start, and you will be brought to the migration report.
- You can click Load More Results in the migration report to see your progress.
Note: When you use Download content to download a folder or a document, a new folder with the library's name is created on your destination, and the folder hierarchy is recreated down to your selected folder or document. If a folder or document exists on your destination drive, ShareGate Migrate does not overwrite it and creates a duplicate to ensure your destination data's integrity.
For more info, see Download content - Folder and file structure
Metadata and folder structure
The metadata of the list items and documents is stored in an Excel spreadsheet. The Excel file is created in the top-level folder of the list or library at the destination, as shown below:
- For a library download, a folder with the library's name is created, within which is a Documents folder to hold your files, and an Excel document with the library's name is created to hold the metadata.
- For a list download, a folder with the list's name is created, within which an Attachments folder can be created to hold your files, and an Excel document with the list's name is created to hold the metadata.
Considerations
You can use Download content to archive your content on local or shared drives. We do not recommend using Download content if you hope to bring that content back to SharePoint later. When using Download content, consider these factors:
- File properties are not preserved on your files.
- Author and timestamp properties will be replaced by the current time and the user account you will use for the operation.
- Permissions are not preserved.
- List and library settings are not preserved.