How to Retrieve More Than 5000 SharePoint Items Using Do Until in Power Automate

Introduction

One of the most common challenges while working with Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Power Automate is efficiently handling large SharePoint lists containing more than 5000 records.

Although the Get items action supports pagination, enterprise-level solutions often require significantly better control over large data processing, including batching, logging, filtering, performance optimization, and error handling. In such scenarios, implementing a Do Until loop with incremental ID-based batching logic becomes a scalable and reliable solution.

In this article, we will implement a batching approach to efficiently retrieve more than 5000 SharePoint records using Power Automate. Instead of fetching all records in a single execution, the flow will retrieve records in batches of 5000 items at a time, process each batch, and then continue retrieving the next set of records sequentially until all items are processed.

This approach helps

• Improve overall performance

• Reduce timeout and throttling risks

• Optimize memory consumption

• Provide better control over large-scale data processing

• Build more scalable and enterprise-ready automation solutions

By the end of this article, you will understand how to design a reliable batching mechanism for processing large SharePoint datasets efficiently in Power Automate.

Steps for implementation

Step 1 : Create the Flow

Create a new flow:

• Instant Flow / Scheduled Flow

Add trigger:

• Manually trigger a flow

Step 2 : Initialize Variables

Variable 1 - LastRecordID

Variable 2 - LastRetrievedNoOfRecords

Step 3 : Add Do Until Loop

Add Do - until and condition it to run until:

LastRetrievedNoOfRecords is equal to 0

Meaning:

• Continue loop until no records are returned.

Step 4 : Add Get Items Inside Loop

Inside the Do Until, add Get Items action:

Imp: Turn On Pagination and set threshold to '5000'.

This ensures filter query:

• Only records greater than previously processed ID are fetched.

Step 5 : Set Retrieved Record Count

After Get items:

Add: Set Variable

Update: LastRetrievedNoOfRecords

Value:

length(outputs('Get_items')?['body/value'])

Purpose:

• Stores how many records were returned in current batch.

Step 6 — Add Condition

Add condition:

LastRetrievedNoOfRecords is not equal to 0

Meaning:

• Only continue processing if records exist.

Step 7 — Update LastRecordID

Inside: If Yes

Add: Set Variable

Variable: LastRecordID

Value:

last(outputs('Get_items')?['body/value'])?['ID']

Purpose:

• Stores highest ID from current batch.

• Next loop starts after this ID.

Example Scenario

Suppose a SharePoint list contains:

25,000 records

Instead of retrieving all records together:

• Loop 1 → 1–5000

• Loop 2 → 5001–10000

• Loop 3 → 10001–15000

• Loop 4 → 15001–20000

• Loop 5 → 20001–25000

This creates efficient batch processing.

Conclusion:

Using a Do Until loop with batching logic is an efficient and scalable approach for retrieving more than 5000 SharePoint records in Microsoft Power Automate. By processing records in smaller batches using incremental IDs, we can improve performance, reduce timeout risks, and handle large SharePoint lists more reliably in enterprise-level automation solutions.