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Which files qualify, and which are refused

The rules, and the difference between a choice and a refusal

Every file in the scope is examined and gets a verdict. Two kinds of verdict matter and they are shown separately, because one is a setting you can change and the other is not.

Reads only. Nothing in SharePoint is changed.
On this page What it tells you How it runs What it will not do Read next

What it tells you

  • Every file in the locations you chose qualifies - no age, size or file-type condition.
  • THE DEFAULT IS NO CONDITIONS - every file in the locations you chose qualifies. That is deliberate: the first thing most people do is point this at a library to see what is in there, and a default that quietly excluded almost everything made the answer look like 'nothing qualifies' when the truth was 'your rules excluded it'. Type an age or a size on the options screen to narrow it.
  • A file restored in the last 90 days is left alone, and that one is NOT zero by default. 'Restored' means restored by ShareMaster from a placeholder - NOT the file's modified date. Restoring puts the original authorship and dates back on purpose, so a file restored this morning still carries a modified date from years ago; the rule needs its own recorded fact, and ShareMaster is the only thing that can record it because ShareMaster is what performs the restore.
  • The restore grace applies only when Record when files are restored is enabled and a restore time has been recorded. Enabling it allows archiving to add a hidden date/time column to each processed library. Report only does not add the column, but can use existing restore timestamps when applying the rules.
  • YOUR RULES LEFT OUT means too small, too recent, or an extension you excluded. Change a setting and those files qualify.
  • VERY SMALL FILES ARE LEFT ALONE unless you ask for them. Archiving replaces a file with a placeholder of about 916 bytes, so a file under 4 KB would free little or nothing - and the very smallest would leave your library BIGGER than before, while still making the file slower to open. Setting the size box to 0 does not change that. "Also archive files under 4 KB" does: tick it when you want an archived copy of every file, in case the original is ever deleted, and the space does not matter.
  • SHORTCUTS ARE NEVER ARCHIVED. A .url or .lnk only points at something else. Archiving one would reclaim almost nothing and would stop the link working until somebody restored it, so they are left exactly as they are.
  • Site Pages is never archived. Archiving replaces a file's contents with a pointer, and a site's pages ARE files - a page turned into a placeholder is a page that no longer exists. There is no setting for that, in either direction.
  • SITE ASSETS IS LEFT ALONE unless you tick it, and the reason is that it is not really a document library: it is where a site keeps the images, logos, videos and stylesheets its own pages load. Those files are not documents somebody opens, they are parts of the site, and a placeholder in their place is what makes a live site look broken. Tick it for a site being retired, where those assets are just bulk, and leave it for one anybody still visits.
  • REFUSED means no setting will archive it. A retention label, including a record label; a file somebody has checked out; or a file that is already a placeholder.
  • COULD NOT BE JUDGED means SharePoint did not return one of the facts the rules need - usually a size or a modified date. Those files are counted and listed with the missing fact named, never dropped: a file nobody could read must not look the same as a file that did not qualify.
  • This selection is based on each file's own facts - its size, its age, its type, whether it carries a retention label or is checked out. Whether a SITE is under a retention policy or a hold is not checked, here or when archiving. On a site that is, SharePoint can keep its own copy of every file archived there until the policy ends, so the space may not be freed.

How it runs

  1. Age and size. Both are floors, not filters: a file must clear both to be archived. Size is the reason small files are skipped - the round trip costs more than the space it reclaims.
  2. Files too small to save anything. Below 4 KB a file is not archived, on top of whatever size you set. The placeholder left behind is about 916 bytes, so there is nothing meaningful to reclaim, and below that size archiving would cost you space rather than save it. Tick "Also archive files under 4 KB" to archive them anyway - for a copy of every file rather than for the space. Shortcuts and placeholders stay excluded either way.
  3. Shortcuts. .url, .lnk files are never archived. They point at something else rather than holding content, so archiving one frees almost nothing and breaks the link until it is restored.
  4. Extensions you exclude. Typed however you like - psd, .AI, *.mp4 all work. Applied on top of the ones this feature refuses whatever anybody asks.
  5. Extensions never archived. .shurl, .shrun are refused whatever you choose, so a second run cannot archive a placeholder and lose the original behind a pointer to a pointer. .aspx, .master, .dwp, .webpart, .stp, .xsl, .xsn, .css, .js are skipped while "Leave site files alone" is on, because SharePoint may read these itself and a placeholder in their place would break the site rather than save space. Turn that setting off when they are simply stored in a library and nothing loads them.
  6. Retention labels. Any retention label on the file at all, record labels included, and it is refused. This is not configurable, and it is deliberately blunt: a compliance incident is not a bug to fix afterwards.
  7. Checked-out files. Skipped. Somebody is working on it, and replacing it would lose their draft.

What it will not do

  • A retention policy or legal hold on a whole site is not checked by the report or by the archive, so it is never the reason a file is refused. Only a label on the file itself is.
  • Version history is not counted in the size floor. A 2 MB file with 500 versions is a lot of storage that this rule does not see yet.

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