Technologies are described herein for providing efficient in-place preservation of content in multiple, disparate content sources without disrupting end-users' access to the content or content sources. A preservation request comprising a specification of a content source and a filter specification is received and the content source is marked as “on hold.” If a content item in the content source is modified or deleted, a copy of the current version of the content item is placed in a preservation storage area. A trim job may be run periodically that removes content items from the preservation storage area that do not match the filter specification.