Walkthrough - Download content

Use Download content to move documents and list items from your SharePoint sites and OneDrives to a local drive or a file share.

Note: Download content was created to help you archive your files and list items on a local drive or file share. It is not recommended to use this feature if you want to migrate that content back into SharePoint with the same structure and metadata at a later date.

Index

• Prerequisites
• How-to
• Metadata and folder structure

Prerequisites

• You have site collection admin permissions on the site collection(s) you want to download from.
• You are connected to your site collection(s), Microsoft 365 Admin center, or SharePoint central admin.

Note: Site collection admin permissions are required even if you have higher admin privileges like SharePoint admin or Global admin permissions. For more information, see Administrative permissions.

Tip: To manage all your site collections, you can connect to your central admin or admin center with SharePoint admin, farm admin, or global admin permissions.

How-to

1. Select the site, object, or document you would like to download from Explorer.
2. Click Download in Quick actions at the right.
3. Select your preferred configurations.
4. Click 
5. Select your download location.
6. Click OK.
7. The download will start and you will be brought to the migration report.
8.  You can click Load More Results in the migration report to see your progress.

Metadata and folder structure

The metadata of the list items and documents is stored in an Excel spreadsheet. The Excel file is created in the top-level folder of the list or library at the destination as shown below:

• For a library download
  
• For a list download