Bulk Export 1.1, now with Picture Library support

For lots of people, the most intimidating part of storing data in SharePoint is the idea that they might not be able to get it out -- especially if there's a lot of it. Fortunately for these folks, there's always Bamboo's Bulk Export, which enables you to pull your entire document library off of SharePoint, and back to the cozy confines of your hard drive, network drive, etc., without you so much as having to open a web browser.

Well, good news, bulk exporters of the world : your favorite tool just got better. Bulk Export 1.1, which is available for download from our storefront right this very minute, adds a couple of new, key features.

Improved Scheduling Support

Bulk Export has always worked well with scheduled exports with its easy to call on configuration files. Now, the process is even smoother and less resource intensive, as the program can be easily configured to only download files that have been modified since the last export. If you do regular, scheduled backups, why waste time and bandwidth downloading the same huge, unchanged product listing day after day? If it's new, Bulk Export will download it. If not, it'll move on.

Of course, if you're doing a one-time document dump (or just love exporting everything that moves), you can always turn this option off.

Create Index Files

The original Bulk Export focused on Document Libraries; in release 1.1, we've added the ability to export the data in regular old SharePoint lists to Index Files (regular old .txt files) -- you can even include an Index File with your Document Library export, giving you a time-stamped list of all exported files, and their corresponding metadata.

Extract Picture Libraries

Manually extracting pictures from SharePoint is no more exciting (and no less time consuming) than pulling documents. That's why Bulk Export now works with Picture Libraries, allowing you to pull hundreds of pictures off your portal with just a few clicks. Plus, you can use Index Files and scheduled exports just like you can with Document Libraries.

"WHAT???", you say. "EXPORTING PICTURES FROM SHAREPOINT IS A HORRIBLE PROCEDURE, AND IT WILL NEVER CHANGE. I EXPORTED PICTURES MANUALLY FROM SHAREPOINT, AS DID MY FATHER, AND HIS FATHER BEFORE HIM."

Relax. I have seen the future, and it is glorious -- play this clip and have a look.

Pretty good, huh? Now check out the results.

Not everyone takes advantage of SharePoint's Picture Libraries, in no small part due to the amount of time and manual effort it takes to move large numbers of images from the portal to a local file location. With Bulk Export 1.1, those concerns are moot, making Picture Libraries a practical tool for image centralization.

Happy exporting!