You've probably been sitting on a list of sites you can't archive whole. A handful of active files can keep many sites out of reach for site-level archiving.
That's the problem file-level archiving was built to solve. Microsoft's native file-level archive lets users and site owners archive individual files directly from the SharePoint UI. But for IT admins managing hundreds or thousands of sites, one file and one click at a time isn't a workflow.
Starting now, Orchestry's Enterprise plan includes file-level archiving at tenant scale: rule-based, admin-triggered, and executed in bulk across as many workspaces as you need to target. Orchestry participated in Microsoft's file-level archive private preview, which is why we aren't playing catch-up: this capability is already running with early-access customers ahead of general availability.
If you want the full picture of what Microsoft's native feature does, our technical breakdown covers it thoroughly.
Orchestry's file-level archiving doesn't replace Microsoft's archive infrastructure. It uses the same Microsoft 365 Archive cold storage, the same underlying APIs, the same compliance boundaries. What it adds is the execution layer that makes the feature usable at admin scale.
Four things specifically:
All content moves into Microsoft 365 Archive cold storage. Nothing leaves the compliance boundary, no existing links break, and no migration is required.
Purview retention policies, eDiscovery, and legal holds all continue to apply to archived content. Admin-level search through Purview Content Search continues to work on archived files, though eDiscovery exports may take longer.
If your organization uses third-party archive tools that move content outside Microsoft 365 entirely, that distinction matters: archived content here stays inside the same governed environment it's always been in.
This feature is available on the Orchestry Enterprise plan.
One prerequisite before you start: Microsoft 365 Archive needs to be enabled at the tenant level, and file-level archive needs to be enabled on the sites you want to target. Orchestry checks both before processing and won't run jobs against sites that don't meet the criteria. If you haven't set this up yet, our admin guide walks through the PowerShell steps.
From Orchestry's workspace reporting view, select the workspaces you want to target: a handful, a department's worth, or the full tenant. Then trigger file-level archive and configure your targeting criteria.
Three criteria, combinable in any way that fits your situation:
Once the job runs, Orchestry logs the results: file count, total storage archived, and any failures, per job, for audit and reporting purposes.
Archiving content without telling workspace owners is the kind of thing that generates helpdesk tickets. The optional notification is designed to get ahead of that.
It frames what happened as a storage optimization, not a deletion, explains that files haven't been deleted and remain visible in their original library location, and gives owners a direct link to view their archived content and reactivate files if needed. The goal is to handle the change management in the same action as the archiving.
Here's what that notification looks like in practice.
Site-level archiving works well when a workspace is clearly finished: a completed project, a retired department, a past initiative. The decision is clean because the site is inactive.
File-level archiving is for the sites that will never be archived whole. A few examples that come up consistently:
If you've been following Orchestry's storage series, you've already been flagging these sites.
One boundary to note: file-level archive applies to SharePoint sites. It doesn't currently extend to OneDrive, and some file types can't be archived; OneNote files, SharePoint pages, SharePoint agents, and content in the Site Assets library are excluded.
When files move to archive, they're reclassified from active (hot) storage to archived (cold) storage at the tenant level. Your active storage consumption drops by the amount archived. If your tenant is running over its included quota, that reduction directly reduces your overage charge.
Microsoft's archive cold storage is billed at $0.05/GB/month, compared to $0.20/GB/month for standard SharePoint storage: a 75% reduction on the archived portion.
The catch: you only pay for archived storage when your total (active plus archived) exceeds your tenant's standard quota. If you're under quota, archiving costs you nothing. Our breakdown of the billing model is worth reading before you start estimating impact for your specific situation.
Archiving files doesn't reduce the storage number reported at the site level. That figure stays the same. The change shows up at the tenant level, where active storage decreases. It's a distinction that catches admins off guard the first time they check.
Archived files are excluded from Microsoft 365 Copilot's grounding scope. Copilot won't use archived content to generate responses, and it can't search archived files. This is Microsoft's platform behavior, not something Orchestry configures, but it's a real benefit of moving stale content out of active storage.
Stale, inactive files that haven't been touched in years shouldn't be grounding your AI. Archiving them also narrows what Copilot draws from, so its responses reflect what's actually in use today.
File-level archiving is available now on the Orchestry Enterprise plan.
If you're already on Enterprise, you can start targeting your first set of workspaces today.
If you're not on Enterprise yet and want to see how this fits your storage situation, there are two ways to move forward: