Choose which files a job takes

The file filters

Field	What it selects	How to write it
From Date	Files from this date on	A date and time. Leave it empty for no lower limit.
To Date	Files up to this date	A date and time on or after From Date.
Size From	Files of at least this size	Whole kilobytes, for example 1024 for files of 1 MB and larger.
Size To	Files of at most this size	Whole kilobytes, at least Size From.
Source File Type	Files with these extensions	Extensions without the leading dot, separated by semicolons — `pdf;docx;xlsx` — or one per line. Case does not matter, and there are no wildcards.
Include Subfolders	The folders below the source too	On by default. Off, only the files at the top of the source are taken.

The filters combine: a file is taken when it passes every filter that is set. A range that cannot match anything — To Date before From Date, or Size To below Size From — does not validate.

Discover first, then filter

Run a Discovery job on the whole source first. The Power BI report shows the source by age, size and file type, so you can see what a filter would leave out before you set it on the migration.

How to read a source before you move it is described in Discovery

Only the files changed since the last run

Incremental (only files changed since the last successful run), under From Date, makes a job incremental: From Date moves on after each run with no error or warning, so every run after the first reads only the files created or modified since — Discovery included. Reset From Date starts over with every file. How it works, and what it is for: Incremental runs: only the files changed since the last run

Include empty folders

Include empty folders (Advanced Settings, Migration and Test Migration only) recreates the source's folders that contain no files, so the folder structure arrives complete. On by default.

Examples of file selection

You want	Set
Only PDF and Word files	Source File Type: `pdf;docx;doc`
Only the files of the last two years	From Date: two years back
Files from before 2020 in one job, newer files in another	First job — To Date: 31 December 2019. Second job — From Date: 1 January 2020.
Leave out files over 2 GB	Size To: `2097152`
A nightly copy that reads only what changed	Recurrence: Daily, and Incremental (only files changed since the last successful run) on
Only the top folder, not its subfolders	Include Subfolders: off

Filters on an imported job

An Import job's Source step holds the filters its new jobs are given. Every job the import creates starts with the same filters, which can then be changed job by job. See Import jobs

See also