Excluded Libraries and Paths in Squirrel

The Excluded Libraries and Paths feature in Squirrel allows administrators to prevent specific document libraries or folder paths from being archived.

Exclusions are useful when certain content should remain in SharePoint and never be captured by the automated archiving policy (for example: temporary working areas, test libraries, or personal team folders).

Important: Exclusions only apply to the automated archiving policy. If you manually archive/restore items by path or select files individually, these exclusions will not apply.

Adding an Exclusion

Open the Excluded Libraries and Paths window from the Sites Archives Settings side panel and clicking on the Exclude Libraries / Paths button.
Enter the Site Name where the library or path is located.
Select the Library or Path Name from the dropdown list.
Optionally, paste the full URL of the library or path you want to exclude.
Click Exclude Item to add it to the exclusion list.

Wildcard Support

You can use wildcards to exclude multiple folders or paths that follow a naming pattern.

Place the wildcard value between % symbols.

Example: https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/finance/Shared Documents/%ignore%

This will exclude any folder path containing ignore.

This provides flexibility for excluding broad categories of data without manually adding each path.

Managing Exclusions

All excluded items are listed under Currently Excluded Items.

Items can be removed at any time to allow them to be included in future archive runs.

Changes take effect immediately on the next archive policy execution.

Best Practices

Exclude temporary working folders and test libraries to avoid unnecessary storage costs.

Use wildcards carefully - overly broad rules may prevent important content from being archived.

Review exclusions regularly to ensure they still align with compliance and retention policies.