SmiKar Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture
Practical retention that reduces SharePoint costs
Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture gives organisations a controlled, compliant, and far more economical way to preserve deleted SharePoint content without relying on the costly and opaque Preservation Hold Library, known as the PHL.
Instead of allowing deleted files to remain hidden inside SharePoint under retention policies, Squirrel automatically captures them from the SharePoint recycle bin and archives them to secure, low cost Azure Blob storage. This delivers predictable storage costs, clearer governance, and simple recovery, all while maintaining compliance.
Squirrel is designed for large enterprise tenants that need scale, reliability, and operational simplicity.
Core benefits
Keep your data compliance without the huge SharePoint costs of Preservation Hold Libraries
Lower Microsoft 365 storage costs
Deleted content is moved out of SharePoint into low cost Blob storage, reducing pressure on tenant limits and ongoing spend.
Reduced reliance on the PHL
By capturing deleted items externally, you avoid the silent storage growth created by the Preservation Hold Library.
Simple recovery
Deleted files remain discoverable through a dedicated SharePoint site with stubs that link back to the archived content.
Transparent governance
Unlike the hidden PHL, preserved items are visible, searchable, and auditable within SharePoint.
Configurable timing
You control how long items stay in the SharePoint recycle bin before being archived, for example seven days or longer if required.
Built for enterprise scale
Squirrel is designed to operate across large tenants with thousands of sites, libraries, and users.
What Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture does
Squirrel continuously monitors the SharePoint recycle bin across your entire tenant.
After a configurable period, typically around seven days, deleted files are automatically archived to Azure Blob storage rather than being preserved inside expensive SharePoint storage.
To keep recovery straightforward, Squirrel creates a dedicated SharePoint site, commonly named Recycle Bin Capture. For every deleted file, Squirrel places a lightweight stub in this site. Authorised users can search, locate, and restore content directly from SharePoint using familiar tools.
This approach preserves your compliance position while materially reducing your Microsoft 365 storage footprint.
Why the Preservation Hold Library Is a Problem Worth Solving
Most large enterprises discover the Preservation Hold Library problem the same way — a storage warning appears despite a recent clean-up exercise, or an invoice arrives showing Microsoft 365 overage charges that nobody can explain.
The PHL is invisible to standard users and rarely monitored by administrators. It grows silently every time a document is deleted or modified while a retention policy is active. In high-churn environments — where documents are frequently edited, replaced, or deleted — the PHL can accumulate terabytes of hidden content that counts against your Microsoft 365 storage quota and cannot be easily removed while retention is active.
For organisations that invested in Microsoft Purview retention policies specifically to meet compliance requirements, the PHL is an unintended consequence of doing the right thing. Recycle Bin Capture addresses this directly — allowing organisations to maintain compliance without the hidden storage cost that retention policies create through PHL accumulation.
Why enterprises choose this approach
Many organisations are legally required to retain all documents for long periods. Traditionally, this forces them to keep everything inside SharePoint, which is one of the most expensive storage platforms in Microsoft 365.
Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture allows you to meet the same retention requirements while moving preserved content to far cheaper storage. SharePoint remains your collaboration platform, not your long term archive.
At the same time, IT and records teams retain a clear, visible way to retrieve deleted content without complex eDiscovery workflows or specialist tools.
How this fits with your retention strategy
Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture does not replace formal records management where it is legally required. Instead, it complements your existing policies by reducing storage costs where long retention is mandated and separating active collaboration from long term preservation.
For highly regulated environments that must still use Microsoft retention policies, Squirrel can still reduce pressure on live SharePoint storage by archiving inactive content in a structured way.
Who this is for
- Large enterprises facing rising Microsoft 365 storage costs.
- Tenants with long retention requirements.
- Organisations running major SharePoint cleanup or migration programs.
- IT teams seeking clearer governance over deleted content.
- Compliance teams that need retention without excessive cloud spend.
Who Benefits Most from Recycle Bin Capture
Recycle Bin Capture delivers the most value for organisations that have active Microsoft Purview retention policies across large SharePoint environments, have experienced unexpected storage growth despite clean-up efforts, are paying Microsoft 365 overage charges they cannot reduce through standard deletion, manage high-churn document libraries where content is frequently edited and deleted, or have compliance requirements that prevent them from disabling retention policies.
For organisations that have already upgraded to Squirrel for document lifecycle archiving, Recycle Bin Capture is the complementary feature that addresses the other major source of hidden storage cost — deleted and modified content captured by retention policies.
How Recycle Bin Capture Compares to the Standard PHL Approach
| Standard PHL Approach | Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture | |
|---|---|---|
| Where deleted content is stored | Hidden SharePoint PHL — counts against your M365 quota | Azure Blob Storage — significantly lower cost |
| Visibility to administrators | Hidden system library — not visible by default | Visible, searchable dedicated SharePoint site with stubs |
| Storage cost | Same as primary SharePoint storage | Fraction of SharePoint storage cost |
| Recovery | Administrator action required | Users can recover via stub files |
| Audit trail | Limited | Full audit trail of all captured items |
| Compliance maintained | Yes | Yes |
| Control over retention timing | Limited | Configurable by your IT team |
Frequently Asked Questions About Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture
Q: What is Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture? A: Recycle Bin Capture is a feature of Squirrel that intercepts deleted SharePoint content from the recycle bin and archives it directly to Azure Blob Storage — preventing it from accumulating in the Preservation Hold Library. Deleted content remains recoverable via stub files in a dedicated SharePoint site while costing a fraction of standard SharePoint storage.
Q: How does Recycle Bin Capture prevent Preservation Hold Library growth? A: When a document is deleted in SharePoint with retention policies active, Microsoft normally copies it to the hidden Preservation Hold Library where it consumes primary SharePoint storage. Recycle Bin Capture intercepts the deleted content and routes it to Azure Blob Storage instead, preventing PHL accumulation without disabling your retention policies.
Q: Does Recycle Bin Capture affect compliance? A: No. Deleted content is still preserved — it is simply stored in Azure Blob Storage rather than the Preservation Hold Library. All content remains recoverable and auditable. The compliance requirement to retain deleted content is met while the storage cost is dramatically reduced.
Q: Can users still recover files captured by Recycle Bin Capture? A: Yes. Captured files remain accessible via stub files in a dedicated SharePoint site. Users can find and restore captured content without IT involvement, in the same way as standard Squirrel archived documents.
Q: Will Recycle Bin Capture work alongside our existing Microsoft Purview retention policies? A: Yes. Recycle Bin Capture is designed to work alongside Microsoft Purview retention policies, not replace them. Your retention policies remain active and your compliance obligations are met — Recycle Bin Capture simply changes where deleted content is stored so it does not inflate your PHL.
Q: Is Recycle Bin Capture included with Squirrel? A: Yes. Recycle Bin Capture is a feature of Squirrel and does not require a separate purchase. It is configured through the Squirrel dashboard alongside your other lifecycle policies.
Cut SharePoint storage costs without losing compliance
Squirrel Recycle Bin Capture archives deleted content to low-cost Blob storage, reducing reliance on the Preservation Hold Library (PHL) while keeping records visible and recoverable in SharePoint.
Bring visibility to deleted content retention
Instead of letting the hidden Preservation Hold Library (PHL) inflate storage, Squirrel captures recycle bin items, preserves them externally, and restores them through simple SharePoint stubs.