How to Archive SharePoint Lists? A Simple Guide

Mark Regan
Published: May 6th, 2025 • 6 Min Read

Want to store your SharePoint Online lists in a secure place? Then, archive it so that your important list items will be securely saved and you can easily access them. In this article, we will explain how you can archive SharePoint lists and discuss the benefits of backing them. So, we start this guide by understanding the SharePoint list.

What is SharePoint List?

SharePoint list is used within the SharePoint application where users store and organize their data in the form of an online table. It is similar to an Excel sheet but is designed for businesses to improve their collaboration. Here, each list consists of columns and rows known as items where you record your information and track your performances.

Users can integrate their SharePoint list with Microsoft 365 and get many advanced features like Power Automate, Power Apps, and easily used within Teams and Outlook. Therefore, SharePoint List contains important information which is very crucial to archive.

Reasons to Archive SharePoint Lists Items

Archiving means moving your data to a different location so that you can secure your important information from any issues. So by doing this, you not only save your SharePoint list, but you will also get many other benefits.

Sometimes, creating unnecessary teams without realizing it or creating site columns and content types without classifying will be stored in your SharePoint list. Because of this, you may face security issues. So, by archiving your list items, you can clean your SharePoint.
If your SharePoint storage space is full then saving an old SharePoint list helps you reduce your storage to store new items.
With this, you can manage your crucial list of items. Because you are moving your less important items to another location. This way, you can easily share your SharePoint list.
It also helps you to improve performance, as a large list can slow down your SharePoint.
Some companies have legal and compliance requirements where they need to get their records for a certain time period.
You can avoid SharePoint errors where the list exceeds the limited size and it impacts with the performance.

Thus, backing up or archiving your SharePoint List will benefit you in so many situations. Now, let’s see how we can archive the SharePoint List.

Export SharePoint List Items to Excel

Users can directly save their SharePoint List to Excel by clicking on one button. Below we provide the steps of this method.

First, open your SharePoint Online and click the Export to Excel option.
In the Excel application, import the SharePoint list in your Excel sheet.
Now, save your spreadsheet. This way you can easily store your SharePoint List items.

Archive SharePoint List Items in CSV Format

Similarly, with the above method you can save your SharePoint list to CSV format. The following are the steps to do it.

In SharePoint Online, filter out the list you want to export.
For this, create a new view option, by clicking the Add view option.
Sort out your lists, then click on the Export option.
Choose the CSV option and your list will be downloaded.

Now, you can easily access the saved file on any platform or you can easily share them.

Challenges in Using Manual Method

As you can see these two solutions do not archive your data and you may also face some issues like.

The process will be time-consuming as you have to sort out or filter your lists before downloading them.
It is good to archive a few SharePoint list items.
There are chances that some of the items will be missing after exporting.

So, manual solutions are not reliable applications even though they are free of cost. But don’t worry, we have an advanced method that can easily and securely save your data.

Backup List Items in SharePoint Online – Advance Method

SharePoint Online is a part of Microsoft 365 where users can access and manage their SharePoint lists easily. So, with the help of BitRecover Office 365 Backup Tool, users can easily archive their list items.

Although the software is used to backup, it is also used to archive as it provides several saving options that you can use to store your crucial list items to secure locations. This utility is created in a way where users don’t have to worry about losing their data as it preserves the original formatting and information throughout the process. Next is the working steps of this method.

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Steps to Archive SharePoint Lists

Download the software and enter your Office 365 email address and password to log in to the tool as admin.
After that, the software fetches your data and displays it on the left side of the screen. Select the SharePoint list from the list of Microsoft 365 data.
Choose any one option from the Saving options to archive your data.
Click on the Filter option to search specific data.
Use the Change option to set a desired location, then select the Save button.

With this method, you can easily achieve your multiple SharePoint List items in just a few minutes. The utility provides you with many additional features such as.

Amazing Features of Professional Software

With the help of this tool, users can easily migrate SharePoint to SharePoint Online.
Users can log in to the software as an administrator.
It offers various saving options like PST, PDF, Gmail, Outlook, IMAP-enabled accounts, etc.
The tool provides you with data filter options to search specific data and save them.
You can install the tool on your Windows as well as Mac OS computers.

Concluding Words

If you are having problems in archiving SharePoint Lists, then this article provides three different solutions. There is no direct manual way to archive SharePoint list items. But, there are options to export your list to Excel or CSV. Other than that we also explored an advanced solution where you can easily save your old SharePoint list without any issues. Properly follow these methods and secure your crucial list items.

Users Mostly Asked Questions

Q. Does SharePoint have an archive option?
Ans. Unfortunately no, in SharePoint there is no in-built archive option, but you can use the Export button to save your list items.

Q. Does archiving in SharePoint reduce storage space?
Ans. Absolutely, by archiving your SharePoint list, you can reduce the size of storage space by up to 75%.

Q. How much does SharePoint archiving cost?
Ans. If you use Microsoft 365 Archive, then archiving your site in SharePoint costs $0.05/GB per month.