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OneDrive Sync Up Episode 22: File Archive with Trent Green

StephenRice's avatar
StephenRice
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Feb 24, 2026

Your company's OneDrive and SharePoint storage keeps growing — but how much is being actually using? Find out on the latest Sync Up episode where we talk about one of our most requested features: file level archive.

If you've been using site archive to manage cold data, you know the value of moving inactive content to cheaper storage. But sometimes you don't want to archive an entire site — you just need to archive specific files that haven't been touched in years. That's exactly what file archive lets you do. On this month's episode of Sync Up, Trent gave us a live demo showing how simple the experience is: Select your files, click archive, done. He also walked through the 7-day instant undo window (in case you archive something by accident) and shared how file archive can improve your Copilot experience too!

File archive is coming to public preview in March 2026 for SharePoint sites. Admin-driven archive policies are on the roadmap for later this year.

Listen & Watch

Catch this episode on your favorite platform:

You can learn more at Overview of Microsoft 365 Archive.

 

Got questions or topic ideas? Email us at syncupquestions@microsoft.com. 

Now go hit play and let us know what you think!

Updated Feb 26, 2026
Version 2.0
onedrive

5 Comments

  • Renes225's avatar
    Renes225
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 26, 2026

    Hi StephenRice​ !
    Unfortunately this link (You can learn more at http://you%20can%20learn%20more%20about%20m365%20archive%20at%20https//learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/archive/archive-overview?view=o365-worldwide) is not working. Can you post the link again please?

    Thx!

  • Donal1575's avatar
    Donal1575
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 25, 2026

    Backup files to One Drive folders went to the recycling bin in One Drive, and removed files – hundreds of files.

    any ideas how to fix error.

  • sfiruch's avatar
    sfiruch
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 25, 2026

    My biggest pain point is OneDrive.exe performance when syncing 300k+ files. As a performance-oriented developer I can barely understand why it'd be so slow. Also, people have been complaining about this for years. Still, no improvements. Would love to know if anybody is working on reduced CPU and memory usage - or what the way forward is.

     

    Performance is so bad that I started looking for OneDrive alternatives yesterday.

    • deividepereira's avatar
      deividepereira
      Copper Contributor
      Mar 10, 2026

      Rclone may serve you well. It works with Windows, macOS, Linux and there's even Android binaries available for testing.

      I use with the 'mount' option between two PCs and A LOT of files. Most of my software I run in portable mode, and for the apps that don't have a native portable mode, I create portable envs using batch files to start them and basically run them in portable mode that way.
      My "portable python" folder has almost 100.000 files alone.
      Rclone uses way less RAM than the official OneDrive and ODfB clients.

      You'll need to set a few things manually though. For instance, if you have Sharepoint Sites as shortcuts, you'll need to add 

      --header "Prefer: Include-Feature=AddToOneDrive"

       to your rclone mount to be able to see them, also, you won't have the "Files on demand" anymore BUT you can use 

      --vfs-cache-max-size

      or 

      --vfs-cache-min-free-space

      so you'll never run out of space on your disk.


      Beware that if you're actively syncing 300k+ files, your problem is not the OneDrive client (app), but rather throttling from OneDrive/Sharepoint servers.
      In my case I have +200k files total, but I don't modify all of them constantly. Maybe a few hundred/day gets updated and synced. For my usage, rclone has been better than the official OneDrive client.