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Policies in ShareGate Protect

Use automated policies in ShareGate Protect to take recurring governance actions on your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Once active, a policy runs once a day, finds content that matches your conditions, and performs the configured action automatically.

ShareGate Protect supports four policy types: Sites, Groups, OneDrives, and Sharing Links.

How policies work

Each policy has three parts:

  • Trigger: ShareGate Protect checks your tenant once a day for content that matches your conditions.

  • Conditions: Rules that define which sites, groups, OneDrives, or sharing links the policy targets. As you add conditions, ShareGate Protect shows how many items currently match.

  • Action: What happens to matched items when the policy runs.

Policy types and actions

The available actions depend on the policy type you select.

Sites, Groups, and OneDrives

These policy types target workspaces. Two actions are available:

  • Archive workspaces — Makes matched workspaces read-only. Archived workspaces can be restored from the SharePoint admin center.

  • Delete workspaces — Permanently removes matched workspaces and their content.

Note: Archiving workspaces requires Microsoft 365 Archive (M365 Archive) to be active in your tenant. See Archive workspaces in ShareGate Protect for setup details.

Sharing Links

Sharing Links policies target sharing links. Matched sharing links are automatically deleted when the policy runs.

Create a policy

  1. Click Create new policy and select the policy type: Sites, Groups, OneDrives, or Sharing Links.

  2. Click the pencil icon next to the default title to give your policy a name.

  3. Define your conditions. Select Add rule to add filters. As you add rules, ShareGate Protect shows how many items currently match.

  4. Select the number of matched items to open a preview report in a new tab and review the list before activating.

  5. Select an action.

  6. Save the policy as inactive (draft) or launch it immediately.

Note: When you create a policy from a sharing link-related Insight, that Insight's default rule is included automatically and cannot be removed.

Activate a policy

When launching a policy, ShareGate Protect shows how many items currently match your conditions and what action will run. Select I understand the risk to confirm and launch.

You can also activate or pause a policy at any time from the Policies tab by toggling the switch on the policy card.

Manage your policies

Policies are displayed as cards in the Policies tab. Each card shows the policy's trigger, conditions, action, and current status.

From the three-dots menu on a policy card, you can:

  • Edit the policy's name and conditions.

  • View activity (opens the Activity Log filtered to all actions performed by that policy).

  • Delete the policy.

Track policy activity

All policy actions are recorded in the Activity Log alongside manual actions. Each entry shows the date, action performed, objects involved, and the policy name.

Use the Source filter in the Activity Log to display policy actions separately from manual actions.

Limitations

  • Conditions are additive: items must match all configured rules.

  • Actions performed by a policy cannot be undone.

  • Policies cannot dispatch notifications to end-users.

  • There is no option to configure a custom schedule.

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