Why Document Archiving Is the Fastest Way to Improve SharePoint Performance
Squirrel automatically identifies inactive SharePoint documents and moves them to Azure Blob Storage — reducing document library sizes, speeding up search and page loads, and cutting storage costs by up to 85%.
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Improving SharePoint Performance by Archiving Old Documents with Squirrel
SharePoint Online is a powerful platform, but as your content grows, so does the performance burden. Document bloat leads to slow page loads, sluggish search, and increased storage costs. Squirrel, our smart archiving solution, helps you reduce Microsoft 365 storage bills—by up to 70%—while speeding up your SharePoint experience
Why SharePoint Performance Declines Over Time
As more documents pile up in your SharePoint sites, database sizes grow, making it harder and slower for the platform to retrieve and render content. Libraries with tens of thousands of files or oversized document sets can severely affect search, load time, and even user productivity. Meanwhile, much of this content is rarely accessed—and doesn’t need to stay live.
Archiving with Squirrel: Better Speed, Lower Costs
Squirrel is a cost-saving SaaS solution built specifically for SharePoint. It identifies and archives inactive documents—moving them to Azure Blob Storage where costs are up to 70% lower than SharePoint Online. In their place, lightweight stub files remain visible in your libraries. Users click to instantly restore any document when needed.
Key Benefits of Using Squirrel
- Lower Microsoft 365 Storage Costs: Move old documents to Azure Blob and cut costs dramatically.
- Faster SharePoint Performance: Smaller libraries mean faster load times and smoother search.
- Easy One-Click Retrieval: Users access archived files with a single click from within SharePoint.
- Full Data Security: Archived files are encrypted in transit and at rest.
- Compliance-Friendly: Automate retention with lifecycle rules and meet data governance requirements.
- Zero Workflow Disruption: Squirrel operates behind the scenes—no retraining or manual steps needed.
- Scalable for Enterprises: Designed to handle high-volume SharePoint sites across departments or tenants.
How Squirrel Works
Squirrel uses lifecycle rules (e.g., last modified date or usage history) to scan your SharePoint document libraries. Once a file qualifies for archiving, it’s moved to Azure Blob Storage and replaced with a stub. That stub retains metadata and links so users can continue working as normal. No manual intervention required.
Why Archiving Matters
SharePoint Online is a premium service, and storing large amounts of rarely-used content in it is expensive and inefficient. Archiving helps you:
- Control and reduce your Microsoft 365 storage footprint
- Improve SharePoint response times for active users
- Meet compliance obligations without costly manual cleanup
- Future-proof performance as your content continues to grow
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How Much Does Document Bloat Actually Affect SharePoint Performance?
Microsoft’s own guidance recommends keeping individual document libraries under 300,000 items for optimal SharePoint performance. Many enterprise environments significantly exceed this threshold — some individual libraries contain millions of files accumulated over years of active collaboration.
The performance impact is measurable. Search results take longer to return as the index grows. Page load times increase as SharePoint renders larger libraries. Version history queries slow down as document version counts accumulate. And Microsoft 365 Copilot query quality degrades as the index becomes cluttered with outdated content that is no longer relevant.
Archiving inactive documents directly addresses all of these issues. Smaller libraries index faster, search returns more relevant results, and Copilot queries are more accurate because they search a cleaner, more current set of active content.
SharePoint Performance Improvement Checklist
- Audit your largest document libraries using SharePoint Storage Explorer — identify libraries exceeding 100,000 items
- Review version history settings — reduce version limits on libraries where extensive version history is not required
- Identify inactive content — documents not accessed in 12 months or more are strong archiving candidates
- Archive inactive documents with Squirrel — moves them to Azure Blob Storage and leaves stub files in place
- Monitor performance improvements — compare search response times and page load times before and after archiving
- Set up ongoing lifecycle policies in Squirrel — so new inactive content is archived automatically rather than accumulating again
- Review Preservation Hold Library size — if retention policies are active this hidden library may be contributing to performance degradation
Frequently Asked Questions About SharePoint Performance and Archiving
Q: Why is SharePoint search so slow? A: SharePoint search performance degrades as document libraries grow. Large libraries with hundreds of thousands of files take longer to index and return results. Archiving inactive documents to Azure Blob Storage reduces library sizes and improves search speed — archived documents remain searchable through stub files and Nutshell AI summaries.
Q: How many documents can a SharePoint library hold before performance suffers? A: Microsoft recommends keeping individual document libraries under 300,000 items for optimal performance. Libraries significantly above this threshold will experience slower search, longer page load times, and higher indexing overhead. Archiving inactive content is the most effective way to bring oversized libraries back within optimal limits.
Q: Will archiving documents affect SharePoint search results? A: No. When Squirrel archives a document it leaves a stub file in the original SharePoint location. The stub retains the file name and metadata so documents still appear in search results. Squirrel’s Nutshell AI feature also embeds AI-generated summaries into stub files so Microsoft Copilot can understand archived content without needing to restore it first.
Q: Does archiving improve Microsoft Copilot performance? A: Yes. Microsoft Copilot queries across your entire SharePoint index. Large libraries cluttered with outdated, inactive content produce less relevant Copilot responses. Archiving inactive documents removes them from the active index, making Copilot results more accurate and relevant. Squirrel’s Nutshell AI summaries ensure archived content remains discoverable by Copilot when relevant.
Q: How long does it take to see SharePoint performance improvements after archiving? A: Performance improvements are typically noticeable within days of archiving a large volume of inactive documents. Search index updates run on Microsoft’s schedule — usually within 24 to 48 hours of archiving — after which search response times and page load improvements become apparent.
Q: Can archiving help with SharePoint versioning performance issues? A: Yes. Excessive version history is a major driver of SharePoint storage consumption and performance degradation. Squirrel can archive old document versions as part of its lifecycle policy configuration, reducing the version history held in primary SharePoint storage while preserving version data in Azure Blob Storage for compliance purposes.
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