If you’re still choosing the replacement, start with my guide to SharePoint alternatives<\/a>. For the purposes of this article, I’m assuming you’re ready to migrate away immediately. I’ll tell you about how to plan and implement a migration away from SharePoint. We’ll focus on Document Library Pro<\/a> as the possible replacement, but the instructions equally apply wherever you’re migrating your documents to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most SharePoint migrations start with a practical constraint. The software may still work well, but the document library now needs to serve a different audience, budget or publishing job. This might be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is especially common in government document management<\/a>, where minutes, agendas and forms need to stay findable after staff structures change. It also comes up in scholen<\/a>, membership bodies, clinics and charities<\/a>, where the person reading the file is often outside the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your organization uses SharePoint’s wider capabilities (workflows, Teams integration, lists, forms and internal collaboration) and your document library is just for internal contacts, then I’d recommend keeping it on SharePoint. This article is for organisations with a genuine reason to migrate their document library away from SharePoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People often try to recreate SharePoint somewhere else, and that’s where the migration gets stuck. For a council clerk, school business manager or nonprofit operations manager moving documents away from SharePoint, You’re no longer stuck by its restrictions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Take a fresh look at the ideal structure for your document library. Mentally separate the library from everything else SharePoint may have been doing. Internal collaboration, co-authoring, workflows, forms and Teams are unrelated to your organization’s document library, so forget about them for this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before touching the files, make a simple inventory of what’s in your current SharePoint document library. Work out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n A migration is an excellent opportunity to have a clear-out and throw things away. It’s a bit like moving house, when you finally get rid of years of clutter! Many SharePoint libraries carry years of superseded versions, old drafts and abandoned folders. My guides to creating a bewaarbeleid voor documenten<\/a> en documenten organiseren<\/a> will help you decide what should stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, decide the audience for each group of documents. Some files may be fully public. Others may be restricted to members or staff, and some may be internal only. This affects how you set up the new document library later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Files are easy to download from SharePoint in principle. The difficult part is that a large library can hit limits that only show up once you start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Document Library Pro can keep a document category in sync with a Google Drive- of Dropbox-map<\/a>, so documents create themselves from the folder and stay in sync. People ask whether we can do the same with SharePoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our view is that for someone leaving SharePoint, a sync is the wrong tool because it keeps SharePoint in the loop permanently. You’d still be paying for it, administering it, and depending on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A migration off SharePoint is a one-off import, not a sync. Next, I’ll tell you how to migrate your documents out of SharePoint properly. The step-by-step version<\/a> is in the support documentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The simplest route is to use SharePoint in your browser. Open the document library, select the files or folders you want, and choose Download. SharePoint packages the selection into a zip file for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Browser download is fine for a few hundred files. However, Microsoft’s own download guidance for OneDrive and SharePoint<\/a> lists several limits you need to plan around:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those limits don’t matter much for a small policy folder. They matter a lot for a document library with years of agendas, minutes, forms, reports and attachments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For anything above the browser limits, Microsoft recommends syncing the library to a computer with the OneDrive sync app. The OneDrive sync app is the desktop app that keeps SharePoint or OneDrive files mirrored on your computer. Once it has downloaded the library, copy the synced folder somewhere outside OneDrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This route is a practical workaround for libraries over 10,000 files. It needs enough disk space for the whole library, and a large library can take a long time to finish downloading. Don’t start it on a laptop that may sleep halfway through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SharePoint metadata columns don’t come with the files. Version history doesn’t either, and neither do permissions. You just get the files and the folder structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For most document libraries that migrate away from SharePoint, that’s enough. The folder structure is the valuable part, because those folders become your categories in the new library. Keep the folder structure intact when you download, and don’t flatten everything into one folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Document Library Pro<\/a> gives you a searchable, filterable document library on your own website. Visitors can search, preview and download files without signing in to anything. It’s built for exactly this kind of library: Policies, minutes, reports, forms and handouts that people need to find and download. It comes with everything you need for a fully functional document library, either for internal contacts or for the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason many SharePoint libraries fail their readers is that the documents live somewhere other than the website people already visit. A parent checks the school site. A resident checks the council site. A member checks the association site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Document Library Pro hosts the library for you and gives you an embed code to put it on your own site. It works on Wix, Squarespace, HubSpot, Weebly, MemberClicks, custom sites and intranets. There’s also a WordPress plugin version<\/a> for organizations publishing on WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visitors get the kind of document page they expect from a website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Search covers the text inside the files, not just the titles. PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint contents are indexed and searchable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making documents public with SharePoint is a pain. Document Library Pro gives you better control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Either make your entire document library public or password protect one or more of your libraries. You can also embed libraries in an already private website or intranet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your SharePoint folders become categories in Document Library Pro. Categories drive the filters visitors use, and nested categories are supported. That means a Reports folder with a Board minutes subfolder can become the category Reports and the child category Reports > Board minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two main ways to import the documents you migrated away from SharePoint into Document Library Pro: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Drag-and-drop<\/strong> – Simply drag your files into Document Library Pro. Once imported, you can manually structure them into folder. Filenames become titles, so filenames matter in a way they may not have inside SharePoint. For example, board-minutes-march.pdf becomes a document titled “Board Minutes March”. Check your filenames before importing. My guide to bestandsnaamconventies<\/a> will help you with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CSV-import<\/strong> – Create (or ask your AI to create!) a CSV ready to import into Document Library Pro. Unlike drag-and-drop, this lets you pre-assign important data such as document titles and categories. The Document Library Pro import guide<\/a> explains the process. These are the columns you can use in your CSV:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To nest a child category inside a parent, use a greater-than sign in the Categories column. For example, write “Reports > Board minutes”. This lets you replicate your SharePoint parent and child category relationship before importing the files to Document Library Pro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Next: <\/p>\n\n\n\n You also need to decide whether to enable version control for your document library. If you need a track of each document’s history, read my guide to documentversiebeheer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Document Library Pro provides ready-made pages that you can link to. Every library gets its own address in the form your-slug.documentlibrary.app, and you can connect your own branded address such as docs.yourcompany.com instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alternatively you can embed the libraries onto your existing website or intranet site. Most people choose this option because it puts the document library where people are already visiting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n De library protection documentation<\/a> explains those options in more detail. For documents that need careful sharing outside the organization, my guide to Veilig documenten delen<\/a> covers the wider planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why the same kind of library fits different sectors. A council can publish agendas and forms on the public website using the approach in my government document management<\/a> guide. A school can keep policies visible to parents while staff-only files stay behind a login, which I cover in my guide to school document management<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A good migration depends on deciding what each file is, whether it still belongs in the library, what it should be called, and who should be able to see it. Treat those decisions as part of the migration, not cleanup for later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"SOP](\"https:\/\/documentlibrary.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sop-library-searchable-procedures-1024x480.jpg\")
Why organizations move off SharePoint<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Start by deciding what you’re replacing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Get your files out of SharePoint<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why I’d import rather than sync<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Route one: Browser download<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Route two: OneDrive sync<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What doesn’t come with the files<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What to use after leaving SharePoint<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Mapindeling](\"https:\/\/documentlibrary.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gs-folder-layout-1024x598.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nPublish documents to your existing website<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Make documents public or private<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Organize the library into categories and tags<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to import your SharePoint documents into Document Library Pro<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Put the library where people will find it<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Document](\"https:\/\/documentlibrary.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fe-07-creative-1024x756.png\")
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A SharePoint migration succeeds or fails in the structure work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n