Last few weeks I came across a lot of SharePoint related questions and especially to document management in SharePoint and what happens when we move documents between libraries. One of the mains issues I heard about relate to document metadata, versions and DocumentID not beeing kept when a document is copied into another SharePoint library. So I thought to write down a few ideas on this topic that might be useful for SharePoint users.
First of all, I have to admit that this behavior is kind of expected since when we copy a document to another location, a new and fresh document is created. That’s why the copy will have fresh metadata, versions and a brand new DocumentID.
This is vital from my point of view since if this would be otherwise, there would be a huge confusion on the latest version of the documents and 2 versions of the same document would be managed separately. So it could be that User 1 edits the document in the Library X and User 2 edits the document in Library Y. This would be a collaboration nightmare and it would be a total nonsense for a tools that is primarily a collaboration tool.
However, you would have the possibility to move a document across SharePoint libraries and in this case the document will keep all metadata, versions and DocumentID. However, if you move a document from “Library X” to “Library Y”, this document will be available only in the “Library Y”.
There are several options to move documents across SharePoint libraries. If you’re using SharePoint 2013 on a Windows 8.1 computer, than you have the option to use the drag and drop feature. To do this you have to “open with Explorer” the needed libraries and drag and drop the documents using the “Move” option (not the “Copy” option).
Another option to move documents between libraries is to do this via the Content and structure option in Site settings. Here is a step by step description on how to do this:
1. Go to Site settings >> Click on “Content and structure” link under Site Administration section
2. Pick the items/files to be moved, Click on Actions >> Move
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Dan Patrascu-Baba
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Hey Dan, I hope you don’t mind me leaving this here but I’ve written a PowerShell script which moves when possible or copies documents between two libraries keeping as much attached data as possible, happy to go over it in detail otherwise the link to the article is below –
https://spandcrm.com/2018/11/12/sharepoint-2013-powershell-script-to-move-all-documents-between-libraries/
Hy Shaun,
I am actually glad you did this. I’m happy when people contribute to anything. Especially since I haven’t touched SharePoint for around 3 years.