Forage: Records Management for SharePoint and Squirrel Archives

3 min read · Last updated 11 October 2026 · Page version 15

Forage is records management for SharePoint Online and for the content Squirrel has archived out of it. It builds an inventory of the files in both places from Squirrel's own records, reads the documents you choose, makes them searchable in one place, and, where content classification is enabled, recognises what they contain, such as bank details, identity numbers or contract terms, and, where you ask for them, suggests labels for the kinds of record you hold.

Forage is the completion of Squirrel rather than an add-on to it, and it requires Squirrel.

Start here

Why archived content needs its own records tool - the problem Forage exists to solve.
How Forage works - the sequence, from Squirrel's record to a searchable estate.
What Forage does today - every capability, and what is not available yet.
Using the Records section - what each page in the portal shows and what you can do there.
Safety principles - what Forage changes, and what it never touches.
Limitations - what Forage does not do.
Questions and answers
Glossary

In short

It reads both halves of your estate. Live SharePoint Online content and the content Squirrel has archived, from one inventory.
It reads the documents themselves. PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, older Office formats, Outlook and email messages, OpenDocument files, the words on drawings (.dwg) saved in any version of the format from 1984 on and on exchange drawings (.dxf), and text formats. Scanned pages are read with optical character recognition.
It makes them searchable in one place. One full-text search across live and archived content, with the retention and sensitivity labels Squirrel recorded shown on each result.
It accounts for everything. Every file in the estate is counted, whether read, excluded by type or by policy, or failed with a recorded reason. Nothing is left out silently.
It can suggest labels. Where content classification is enabled, Forage AI, which runs inside your own deployment, suggests labels for the kinds of record it finds in the sites you choose. People accept or reject each one, and nothing is labelled until its rule is switched on.
No document content leaves your deployment. The text Forage reads, and its search index of that text, stay inside your own deployment.
It deletes nothing.