Problems to back up a SharePoint list

Question

Hello,

At my organisation, we are trying to back up a SharePoint List with more than 5,000 rows by using 'Save as a Template'. When attempted it gives an error as it exceeds the threshold:

Does anyone know a way around?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hi JBlazquez:

Here are some limits for data in a list template.

As you mentioned you want to back up a SharePoint list, we kindly recommend that you use Microsoft Power Automate to do that. The information for you to reference:Solved: SharePoint List to Excel - Daily Backup - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Hope this will help you.

Tin

Answer 2

Thank you, Tin, for your prompt answer. I should probably clarify that the reason why we want to back up the SharePoint list by duplicating the list, is because the rows contain attachments that will be lost if data is exported to spreadsheets or similar software.

We use Microsoft Access as a front end, but, at certain point, the programme began to return errors when converting the linked table into a local table -due to multiple well-known but apparently not-yet-addressed-by-Microsoft problems (i.e. System Resource Exceeded, could not find object,...)-. The SharePoint list is definitely bigger than 50MB (but smaller than 2GB).

If duplicate a SharePoint list bigger than 50MB is not possible, are there any suggestions about how to back up the data (incl. attachments) into a file that can be imported into SharePoint, Access or any other RDBMS?

Answer 3

Regardless of the list size Tin refers to, there's not much you can do with it once it exceeds the 5k item limit. Msft tries to avoid mentioning this hard limit (as Tin did above), and have "been working on fixing it" for years, but nothing has changed. Saving a list template is the easiest way to "back up" your list - and to get below the 5k limit, you can try moving items to new lists using content and structure, or connecting the list to a new Access db and moving items from there. Even easier if you have access to Sharegate, you can also use that to move items.

Answer 4

Thank you, webbrewers. I have tried to connect the list to a new Access db with no success (multiple error when converting linked tables to local) and moving content to other lists can be tedious, messy and time consuming in this particular instance, although I will look into it. Unfortunately, my organisation does not have access to Sharegate.