Exporting Sharepoint List Version Histories: Methods And Gotchas

The Problem of Losing Version History When Exporting Lists

A common issue when exporting SharePoint lists to Excel or other formats is that the version history for list items is not preserved. The export contains only the most recent version of each list item, losing all previous revisions. This data loss can cause significant problems:

• Auditing and compliance requirements may dictate retaining all revisions of records
• Troubleshooting data inconsistencies requires accessing older versions
• Understanding when and why changes occurred over time relies on version histories

Unfortunately, SharePoint’s native export capabilities do not enable exporting the full historical record. The built-in “Export to Excel” feature and even using PowerShell’s Export-SPWeb cmdlet extract only the current version of items. More complex methods that retain metadata and revisions must be utilized.

Methods to Retain Version History

While exporting the current view of a SharePoint list is straightforward, preserving all revision history requires alternative techniques. The two main approaches are:

1. Utilize SharePoint’s “Export to Excel” capability but customize configuration to include version history
2. Employ PowerShell scripts to enumerate through the version history of each item and export to a CSV file

The specific benefits and limitations of each method are covered in detail in the following sections.

Using the Export to Excel Feature

SharePoint’s built-in “Export to Excel” link enables exporting list contents to an Office Excel spreadsheet. However, customizations can enable history support:

1. Navigate to List Settings > Advanced Settings > Allow management of content types
2. Set EnableAttachments to “Yes” to retain attachments with versions
3. Set EnableVersioning to “Yes” to enable full history output

This will configure the export experience to properly render version histories across all list items. The “Export to Excel” link will now open an Excel spreadsheet with separate rows for each revision:

As observed in the screenshot above, the Version column tracks each iteration while the Modified and Modified By columns isolate revision details. All standard SharePoint version metadata is included.

Exporting via PowerShell

The most robust way to export full version histories is by using SharePoint PowerShell cmdlets. This allows enumeration through all item revisions and exporting results to CSV format. Key capabilities of the PowerShell approach include:

• Full fidelity in capturing all version metadata
• Flexibility in output to various file formats
• Automation through reusable PowerShell scripts

Below shows sample code for iterating an item’s versions and exporting metadata properties:

$web = Get-SPWeb https://sharepoint.domain.com 
$list = $web.Lists["My List"]
 
foreach ($item in $list.Items) {
    
    foreach ($version in $item.Versions) {        
        [PSCustomObject]@{
            Title = $version.ListItem.Title
            Modified = $version.Modified 
            Version = $version.Version
            ModifiedBy = $version.ModifiedBy
        } | Export-Csv -Path C:\versions.csv -Append         
    }
}

This PowerShell script grabs the list’s items, enumerates through the Versions collection, captures desired metadata, outputs to a PSCustomObject, and exports rows to a CSV file. The resulting spreadsheet will contain full version history across all items.

Limitations and Gotchas

While the export methods described above enable capturing version histories, certain limitations apply:

• No attachment history – Only the current attachment state is preserved
• No restore capabilities – Exported versions behave like copies vs restorable archives
• No recursive hierarchies – History for lookup columns in related lists are not included

Additionally, large and complex list histories incur other challenges::

• Exporting extremely high numbers of revisions to Excel will throttle and fail
• Bloated overall file size from full history HIV slow performance
• Data inconsistencies if revisions span exportBatch boundaries

Understanding these deficiencies help inform suitable use cases and workarounds for history-enabled exports from SharePoint.

Recommendations and Best Practices

When exporting SharePoint lists with version histories, the following tips help streamline efforts:

• Audit requirements – Balance detail level vs regulatory needs
• Storage planning – Project file sizes from total expected revisions
• Page exports – Utilize paging for large datasets
• Automate exports – Schedule periodic PowerShell scripts

In general, PowerShell based methods provide the most versatility for retaining version history across many scenarios. For ad-hoc snapshots, enhancing the native “Export to Excel” approach also proves useful.