Migrate from file shares to SharePoint Online, move files and preserve the source permissions

Question

We want to migrate around 2 TB of files and folders from windows servers to 5 SharePoint online new sites (each site represents a department).

so my question is how we can do the migration while preserve the source file shares permissions inside SharePoint Online?

I am planning to do the following:-

• create the 5 source sites inside SharePoint online tenant.
• then use 3rd party tool OR SharePoint online tools provided OR Power Shell scripts to do the migration.

but my question is how we can preserve the file shares permission, where we have these scenarios inside the file shares:-

• Some files are available for all users to view and edit.
• Some files can only be viewed by certain people or group of people and can only be edited by certain people of group of people.

so not sure how we can preserve the permissions? for example when we create a new site inside SharePoint, should we define Everyone inside the site? as some file shares might be shared with certain people or group of people only?

any advice? how to Migrate from file shares to SharePoint Online, move files and preserve the source permissions? we are open to use 3rd party tools, built-in tool or power shell commands? any advice?

Answer 1

Hi @john john ,

You could use SharePoint Migration Tool to migrate files from file share to SharePoint online. We could preserve the source permissions with "Preserve file share permissions" setting enabled in SharePoint Migration Tool basic settings.

There are three types of permissions that will be migrated: Read, Write, and Full control. If a file has Write permission for user1, then the file will be set to Contribute for user1 in SPO. If a file has Read permission for user1, then the file will be set to Read for user1 in SPO. For Full control permission, the file will be migrated as Full control in SPO.

Note: At this time, the special permissions, such as Deny, will not be saved.

But in order to maintain existing on-premises file permissions, there must be a corresponding user in SPO. The easiest way to accomplish this is to synchronize your Active Directory accounts to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).

For Reference: File and folder permissions when using the SharePoint Migration Tool

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