Get files actions

I asked Copilot to compare two actions: ‘Get files’ and ‘Get files (properties only.”  Here is the reponse:

In Power Automate, the ‘Get Files’ and ‘Get Files (Properties Only)’ actions are used to retrieve files from SharePoint libraries, but they serve different purposes:

• Get Files: This action retrieves both the properties and the content of the files. If you want to work with the actual content of the file (for example, read a text file, process an Excel file, etc.), you would use this action¹.

• Get Files (Properties Only): This action retrieves only the properties of the files, not their content¹². It’s useful when you need information about the file (like who created it, when it was last modified, etc.) but don’t need to work with the file’s content. If you want to get the file contents later, you can add a “Get file content” step and use the “File identifier” property returned by this action to get the contents of the file¹.

So, the choice between ‘Get Files’ and ‘Get Files (Properties Only)’ depends on whether you need the file’s content or just its properties. If you’re unsure, starting with ‘Get Files (Properties Only)’ can be more efficient, as it uses less data and can be faster, especially when working with large files or large numbers of files³.