We have to move our file shares into SharePoint, and I do not know how to structure it
IT admins at 100-2000 person companies are handed file server retirement deadlines without a structure design step. Migration tools move content but do not decide the target architecture, so small teams either stall the project or lift and shift deep folder trees into SharePoint, breaking sync, paths, permissions, and findability, and burning trust they need for every later cleanup.
Context
The problem in plain English
If this problem is unfamiliar, start here.
When companies retire on-premises file servers, the content has to move into Microsoft 365, usually SharePoint for shared content and OneDrive for personal files. Microsoft provides Migration Manager, a free tool in the SharePoint admin center that copies file shares into SharePoint. The hard part is not the copy: it is deciding the target structure, because SharePoint organizes content into sites and libraries with permission inheritance and metadata, which behaves very differently from a deeply nested shared drive.
Key Terms
Industry jargon explained
Click any term to see its definition.
The Reality
A day in their life
IT admin, Microsoft 365 admin, or SharePoint site owner at a 100-2000 person company on a 1-3 person team
The email from my IT manager this morning was short: the file server goes dark at the end of the quarter, finance has already cancelled the hardware refresh, and the VPN complaints mean nobody will defend keeping it. So that decision is made. What is not made is literally everything else.
I spent an hour in the F drive before lunch just looking. Marketing has folders eleven levels deep. Operations has a folder called New Structure from 2019 sitting next to the old structure it was meant to replace. There are three folders named Final. I opened Migration Manager in the SharePoint admin center and the tooling side honestly looks fine: agents, tasks, reports. It will happily copy all of this exactly as it is, which is exactly what scares me.
A small win this afternoon: I picked one small team, the five-person quality group, sketched a single team site with two libraries for them, and it took twenty minutes and felt obvious. Then I multiplied that by forty departments and ten years of undocumented folders and felt sick again. When I asked the operations lead what in their tree is still used, the answer was probably most of it, which means nobody knows.
What I actually want is not a migration tool. I want a method: a way to walk a folder tree with its owner for one hour and come out with a site and library decision, a keep or archive line, and a name written down next to it. If I had that, the deadline would feel like a project instead of a cliff.
The People
Who experiences this problem
IT admin, Microsoft 365 admin, or SharePoint site owner at a 100-2000 person company on a 1-3 person team
30-55 • Intermediate Microsoft 365 generalist; became the SharePoint person by fixing the first issues, not by training as an architect
Skills
SharePoint and Teams administration
Permissions and external sharing basics
Practical troubleshooting
Basic PowerShell copied and adapted
User support and communication
Frustrations
- Users expect SharePoint to behave like a shared drive and blame IT when it does not
- Guidance assumes enterprise headcount and architect roles
- Every cleanup decision triggers we-might-need-that-one-day pushback
Goals
- Retire the file server without a user revolt
- Build a SharePoint structure the team can govern afterwards
- Cut where-is-my-file and sync tickets
Top Objections
- I do not have time to redesign everything
- Consultants are not in the budget
- If I get the structure wrong I own it forever
- Department heads will not give me decisions
How They Talk
Use These Words
file sharesshared drivesdocument libraryteam sitehub siteMigration Managerpermissionssynclift and shift
Avoid
information architecture maturitycontent fabrictaxonomy governancedigital workplace transformation
Learning Pathway
File Server Exit Pathway
Go from an undocumented folder tree and a scary deadline to an owned, written migration map and a pilot migration that proves the method.
Showing 3 of 3 recommendations
Course
Course Built
◆◆◆◆◆Excellent Fit
Turn an undocumented file server into a written, owner-signed SharePoint migration map
From staring at an undocumented folder tree under deadline dread to running a known method that converts each department into a one-hour decision session with a written, defensible output.
7 lessons150 minbeginner
You'll build: Complete the migration map for at least three departments including one pilot department migrated with Migration Manager, with a written review of where the pilot matched and diverged from the map.
Folder tree triage and the migration map artifactThe one-hour folder walk script and owner decision questionsWhat not to migrate: exclusion rules and stale content lines+3 more
Briefing
Briefing Built
◆◆◆◆◇Good Fit
Decide between free Migration Manager, paid tooling, and outside help before the migration starts
From tool anxiety and vendor noise as a stand-in for a plan, toward a recorded, defensible tool choice made before any content moves.
You'll build: A completed one-page tool decision record: chosen path, the three decisive factors, what was ruled out and why, and the date and source versions the decision relied on.
Blueprint
Build Brief Ready
◆◆◆◆◇Good Fit
Build a Microsoft Lists migration tracker that holds every folder decision, owner, and status
From migration decisions scattered across notebooks, email, and memory, toward one list the whole project, and its leadership reporting, runs from.
You'll build: The configured tracker list with all views working, at least one department's rows entered, and one row moved through the full status flow as proof.
Build brief: Existing-tool setup · Maker handoff
Root Cause
Finding where this problem actually starts
We traced backward through five layers of "why" until we hit the source. Here's what's really driving this.
1
Why is the migration stuck or painful?
The deadline is set externally, but the structure decisions, sites, libraries, ownership, and exclusions have not been made and cannot be deferred past the copy step.
2
Why are the structure decisions so hard?
Folder trees grew for ten or more years with no documentation. A one-to-one copy fails technically and functionally, but nobody can say what each area is for or what is stale.
3
Why does a one-to-one copy fail?
SharePoint organizes content by site and library with flatter structures, metadata, and inheritance-based permissions. Deep nested trees hit path, sync, and sharing problems and bury content Copilot and search later amplify.
4
Why has nobody mapped the content before now?
Ownership was never recorded. Department folders belong to everyone and no one, so the admin cannot get decisions about what to keep, restructure, or delete without a method for forcing small, answerable questions.
5
Why does no method exist in the team?
Migration tooling answers how to move bytes, and enterprise guidance assumes architects and change managers. There is no repeatable, small-team design step between copy everything and redesign everything.
Root Cause
Migration tools and deadlines exist, but the design step does not: small IT teams have no repeatable method for turning an undocumented folder tree into a SharePoint structure with named owners and explicit exclusions, so lift and shift wins by default and recreates the mess.
The Numbers
How this stacks up
Key metrics that determine the opportunity value.
Overall Impact Score
76/100
Urgency
8/10
They need this fixed now
Build Difficulty
8/10
Complex, needs deep expertise
Market Size
7/10
Healthy demand exists
Competition Gap
7/10
Moderate competition
"There are many decisions to be made, like types of sites, the amount of content to migrate, security, and permissions."
Direct practitioner guidance that the migration blocker is the decision layer around sites, content scope, security, and permissions, not merely moving files. — Reddit r/sharepoint commenter gzelfond, Help Needed: Moving Files to SharePoint Online, 2026-02 (relative Reddit timestamp: 4 months ago when checked 2026-06-11)
More Evidence
What others are saying
"The SharePoint Migration Tool is free, but it comes with several caveats that teams need to plan for up front."
Direct practitioner evidence that free tooling does not remove the planning burden and that teams need to account for reporting, validation, remediation, and permission gaps. — Reddit r/sharepoint commenter BoundlessTFT, Help Needed: Moving Files to SharePoint Online, 2026-02 (relative Reddit timestamp: 4 months ago when checked 2026-06-11)
"If anyone's found a good file server to SharePoint migration strategy/framework I'd like to know too!"
Direct practitioner demand signal for a strategy or framework, matching this Problem's missing-method angle. Older contextual evidence, supported by the 2026 thread above. — Reddit r/sharepoint poster, Migration from file server to SharePoint - with all the bells and whistles, 2025-03 (relative Reddit timestamp: 1 year ago when checked 2026-06-11)
The Landscape
What solutions exist today?
Current market solutions and where there are opportunities.
Leader
M
Microsoft Migration Manager
Approach: Free agent-based copy tool in the SharePoint admin center for file shares and cloud sources
Pricing: Included with Microsoft 365
Weakness: Moves content, but the practitioner evidence still warns that teams must plan site types, content scope, security, permissions, validation, remediation, and governance around it.
Challenger
S
ShareGate-class migration tooling
Approach: Paid tooling with richer mapping, permissions handling, scheduling, and reporting
Pricing: Paid subscription or quote-based commercial path; current pricing needs verification
Weakness: Still executes whatever structure you feed it; the design gap remains, and licensing needs budget approval
Niche
M
Migration consultants
Approach: Done-for-you discovery, design, and migration
Weakness: Cost is rarely approved for what leadership sees as copying files, and the method leaves with the consultant unless the team captures it
Niche
M
Manual copy and OneDrive sync
Approach: Drag and drop or sync-client copying by department
Weakness: Slow, loses control of metadata and validation, and invites every user to invent their own structure
The Gap
Why existing solutions keep failing
The pattern they all miss — and how to beat it.
Common Failure Mode
Tooling and documentation answer how to move bytes. Small-team practitioners still need a way to decide target structure, ownership, and exclusions in days, which is the actual blocker.
The Fix
What a solution needs to succeed
The non-negotiables and nice-to-haves for any product or service tackling this problem.
The 3 Wishes
Walk any department folder tree with its owner for one hour and walk out with a written site and library decision, a keep, archive, or leave-behind line for every top-level folder, and a named owner, repeated until the whole file server has a migration map a small team can execute.
Must Have
A repeatable folder-walk method with scripts and decision questions
A migration map artifact: source path, target site and library, owner, action, date
A what-not-to-migrate decision rule set
A permissions translation step from ACLs to SharePoint inheritance
A pilot-first sequence with a rollback story
Nice to Have
Migration Manager prescan walkthrough
Department communication templates
A naming convention starter set
Out of Scope
Tenant-to-tenant migration
SharePoint Server on-premises targets
Records management and legal retention design
Custom tooling or scripts requiring developer support
Success Metrics
A completed migration map covering every in-scope share
Every mapped area has a named owner and an explicit action
One pilot department migrated and reviewed against the map
A written exclusion list leadership has seen
Solution Strategy
Which approach fits you?
Migration Manager and paid tooling compete on copy speed and fidelity; consultants compete on done-for-you redesign. Nothing serves the small team that must design the structure itself in days. A method-first course with a tracker beats both: cheaper than consultants, and it makes any copy tool safer.
What we recommend
Lead with a course teaching the folder-walk mapping method producing a migration map, support it with a briefing that settles the Migration Manager versus paid tooling decision, and add a blueprint for a migration decision tracker the team runs during the project.
The Future
What might make this problem obsolete
Technologies and trends that could disrupt this space. Factor these into your timing.
medium probability
1-3 years
AI tooling starts proposing target structures from folder scans
Mapping gets faster, but owner decisions and exclusions remain human; the method stays valuable as the review layer
SaaS: Medium risk
Course: Low risk
high probability
1-2 years
Microsoft keeps absorbing paid-tool features into free tooling
Strengthens the free path this content already centers on; tooling briefing needs periodic refresh
SaaS: High risk
Course: Low risk
For Creators
Content Ideas
Marketing hooks, SEO keywords, and buying triggers to help you create content around this problem.
Buying Triggers
Events that make people search for solutions
- A file server decommission or hardware end-of-life date is announced
- VPN and remote access complaints make the file server politically indefensible
- A security review or cyber insurance question flags unmanaged file shares
- Copilot rollout requires content inside Microsoft 365
- A merger or office move forces consolidation
Content Angles
Attention-grabbing hooks for your content
- The design step migration tools skip
- Why lift and shift recreates the file server mess in SharePoint
- A one-hour folder walk that produces a real structure decision
- What not to migrate: the highest-leverage migration decision
- Permissions translation: shared drive ACLs to SharePoint inheritance
Search Keywords
What people type when looking for solutions
file share to sharepoint migrationmigrate file server to sharepointsharepoint migration planningmigration manager file sharessharepoint site structure for departmentslift and shift sharepoint problems
The Evidence
Where this came from
Every claim in this report is backed by public sources. Verify anything.
1.2.3.4.5.
Reddit r/sharepoint: Help Needed: Moving Files to SharePoint Online
reddit.com
Reddit r/sharepoint: Migration from file server to SharePoint - with all the bells and whistles
reddit.com
Migrate your file shares to Microsoft 365 with Migration Manager
learn.microsoft.com
Scan and assess file shares using Migration Manager
learn.microsoft.com
Migration Manager File Share migration reports
learn.microsoft.com
7 sources referenced
Problem published by Collab365 Spaces. Cite as "We have to move our file shares into SharePoint, and I do not know how to structure it", Collab365 Spaces. 7 sources referenced.
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