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General folder automatically created
Hi For some reason Teams keeps creating a folder called General for a all teams I'm a member of. This is really annoying as it gets replicated on a sharepoint site where we don't want a folder ca...
Hi AI_birder ,
Afraid there is nothing we can do about that. By default a folder is created in the Standard "Documents" library in the SharePoint site for each channel.
For formal document management I don't use the "Documents" library I create other document libraries to save it getting clogged up with any document or image that gets attached to a Team chat.
Hope that helps
Andy
Hi AI_birder ,
Afraid there is nothing we can do about that. By default a folder is created in the Standard "Documents" library in the SharePoint site for each channel.
For formal document management I don't use the "Documents" library I create other document libraries to save it getting clogged up with any document or image that gets attached to a Team chat.
Hope that helps
Andy
I encountered this annoying problem in July 2024. We started using our "default" SharePoint site as our Document library for our small team of <10 users a few years ago. Now it has several TB of data in it and would be somewhat difficult to move. But, if there is a way to do it, we will.
It is troublesome that every time someone makes a new Team, it creates these "General" and other named folders at the root of our SP Documents library.
Is there anywhere (official or otherwise) that documents a step-by-step process of how to set up a separate SP site to house these Teams folders so they don't clutter and pollute our main Sharepoint site?
- Andrew is correct, this is not wrong and it works like this by design
This is accurate information (General is created) but it's so 'wrong' in every way - who ever wants a folder called 'General'? Surely this is wrong on every level! Microsoft policy is mindblowingly incomprehensible on this sort of thing. Do you use 'General' folders?
Agreed. timmyd27 This forced creation of a "General" folder inside the SP folder that is the documents for the Team is not a good idea. It seems to be a misunderstanding of the many ways you create Teams.
- Start from Teams, no real SP content already created.
- This then makes sense to have a new SP site with a "general" document FOLDER (not library)
- Start from Office 365: This still makes *some* sense, as you create a SP site with a document library with a folder called General.
- Start from existing SharePoint site in heavy use: WRONG design!
- I already have many SP sites, with many SP doc libraries. When I share things in TEAMS to the SP library (say FOO) I want to display the entire FOO document library and ASK where the document is supposed to be store. If stuff is being dumped into a General folder inside the FOO library, it is very confusing to Teams members who are doing their jobs fast and trying to understand where the files are? Add to this that some Teams are not associated with existing SP document libraries and it makes a jumbled mess. A Teams member is inside a non associated SP site and starts storing documents that they believe are being stored on the actual SP site that the company stores all it's documents in. Why? Because *other* Teams they may be members of ARE associated to the main SP site that they know and use. While this *could* be percieved as a design flaw from the admin, as Teams is often built Ad Hoc and new Teams are added for projects, this is just becomes very confusing. I would give Admins the ability to get rid of General and point FILES to a SP library of their choice. The top level is FINE from my admin POV. I support many smaller NGOs that don't have admins and they have employees come and go frequently. This general folder bucket just is confusing to all involved.
- You *can* add a DOCUMENT LIBRARY to the TEAMS navigation bar to get them to the right Library, but that doesn't eliminate the creation of the General folder inside it.
- Start from Teams, no real SP content already created.
jcgonzalezmartinis there a way to untie the Teams & SharePoint connection? I don't want to have the site connected to Teams anymore and I don't want this random General folder in our documents directory.
The last time I tried removing the Teams connection I ended up deleting the entire SharePoint site. Can you provide guidance?
ChemicalEngineer the supported way would be to remove the Team which removes the associated SharePoint site. Then re-create a SharePoint site from SharePoint Home (if enabled by your admin)
Every time you create a Team it creates an Office 365 Group which in turn spins up a SharePoint site collection. This is all by design.
