Squirrel Archiving – User Guides

3 min read

Welcome to the Squirrel Archiving User Guides – your central resource for learning how to use and manage Squirrel effectively.

Squirrel is a powerful archiving solution designed to help organisations reduce their SharePoint and Teams storage usage while keeping documents accessible to end users. These guides are split into two main categories:

Administrator Guides – for IT teams deploying and managing Squirrel
End User Guides – for staff who want to restore or archive files themselves

To learn more about what Squirrel does and how it works, visit the official product page:
Squirrel at smikar.com

Whether you’re performing a full-site archive or just restoring a single document, this section will walk you through the process step by step.

What is Squirrel Archiving?

Squirrel helps organisations regain control of their Microsoft 365 storage by archiving unused or older files to Azure Blob Storage, replacing them with lightweight stub files that include a self-service restore or archive button.

Key benefits:

Reduce storage bloat in SharePoint and Teams
Keep archived files accessible with one-click restore
Ensure data sovereignty with geo-specific deployments
Restore files directly from synced folders or Teams channels

Guide Structure

We’ve broken down our documentation to make it easier for you to find what you need:

Administrator Guides

For IT admins, engineers, and support staff responsible for managing the platform. These guides include:

Full Site Archive
Learn how to archive an entire SharePoint site, including subfolders and document libraries, while preserving structure.
Full Site Restore
Restore entire SharePoint sites or large volumes of files in bulk using the restore engine.

Visit the full admin guide here:
[Admin Guides](/squirrel/Admin Guides/)

Admin topics may also include:

Setting up stub file buttons (SPFx deployment)
Connecting securely to SharePoint using PnP PowerShell
Archiving by folder path or targeting specific libraries
Reviewing logs and monitoring archive/restore activity
Handling special cases like Teams Private Channels

End User Guides

For general staff, project team members, or knowledge workers who want to restore or archive files directly within SharePoint or Teams.

End User Restore
How to use the Restore button in SharePoint or Teams to recover a previously archived document.
End User Archive
How to manually request a file be archived using the Archive button (if enabled by your organisation).

Visit the full end user guide here:
[End User Guides](/squirrel/End User Guides/)

These guides walk through:

What archived files look like (stub files)
How to restore from within a synced folder on your desktop
When to request archiving manually vs. waiting for policy-based automation

How Squirrel Works (In a Nutshell)

Detection
Squirrel identifies files that meet your archive policies (e.g., not accessed in 180 days).
Archiving
Files are moved to Azure Blob Storage. A stub file remains in SharePoint or Teams with a clickable link.
Self-Service Access
Users can restore files themselves via the button, or request archive (if allowed).
Full Audit Trail
All actions are logged for compliance and monitoring.