Forum Discussion
Hillary Barter
Aug 27, 2018Copper Contributor
Moving or Copying Files: Painfully Slow, Loss of Data
Hello All! Our company transitioned over to SharePoint Online about a year ago. One of the largest complaints I have to date, is the time it takes to move or copy files. In cases of one or t...
- Aug 28, 2018
If you're using "Open in Explorer" I think that may be part of the issue, and I'm assuming that you're using Internet Explorer. From personal experience I never really got on with the piece of functionality. It worked well back in 2007 when I first used it, but now there are much better options available.
Option 1 - Move To
When you visit a document library in the modern experience, you can click on the ellipsis against the document and select move to (see attachment "Modern-MoveTo.docx". In Figure 1, you can see the option to move to, and then in Figure 2 you can see that you have a number of options to either move it to OneDrive for Business or to another SharePoint site. When I tested this with a document of approx 1mb it took about 5 seconds to get itself warmed up and then do the move.
Option 2 - OneDrive Sync
The alternative option which has been mentioned before is to use sync (see attachment Modern-Sync.docx). In Figure 1, you can see the ability to Sync your library to your local file system using the OneDrive Sync Client. By hitting the sync button, you'll see it connect to your sync client (Figure 2), and then it will be available from your Windows Explorer windows (Figure 3). Once it's been synced, you can copy and paste documents between synced libraries in the same way as you would with normal files. Again this took only a few seconds to copy, paste and sync between the libraries.
I hope this approaches are useful and that they work. If not, please let us know and we'll see what else we can come up with.
Matt Weston
Aug 29, 2018Iron Contributor
It's difficult to suggest a best practice as it comes down to the ways in which your users like to work. In my own business unit I have some who like to only work in the browser, and someone who only like to work with synced folders. You can explain to your users how they can do it, and then they find their own way. If I'm working with complete O365 novices, then I like the synced folder approach as it's very very similar to what they've always done.
That's one of the things which I like about O365 so much, each user can find their own way of working which is most comfortable and most efficient for them.
Hillary Barter
Aug 30, 2018Copper Contributor
thanks for all of your help!
- nittygrittyMay 10, 2020Brass Contributor
Hi
Moving files and folders within or between document libraries within SharePoint Online can only be described in a single way: An utter and complete nightmare and the the variety of error messages is highly confusing and inconclusive.
If you needed any proof that Microsoft's mission statement "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” is a complete joke, look no further than moving files on Sharepoint Online, the possibly most basic IT activity there is.
If anybody finds a solution to moving large numbers of files within SharePoint Online (Office 365), then please let us know.
- Seed90Sep 21, 2019Copper Contributor
Hi
I am having the same issue as you have mentioned here. I requested our IT provider use the migration tool to upload our companies data and the company data that we merged with to a new team site, however, the migration didn't go to plan and we now have to separate libraries within the team site.
I am trying to find an simpler way to combine the to document libraries, preferably by copying or moving one documents library into another. When I have done this as a test I find that if I copy more than a few files with a max of 5GB in total then I will come back to my computer and the page will have timed out and there is no way, other than individually checking each folder, to see what has gone and what hasn't.
If this is the only way to move data around it is not really suitable as you have mentioned as it means I will need to make multiple trips to the office over the weekend when everyone is out of the office to make sure that the files are being moved.
If anyone has any suggestions as to how this can be done more efficiently it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
- DeletedApr 04, 2019
Recently I attempted to move around some files from the document library of my Team Site to a sub-site with some unique permissions (which is our goal, to create a better secured document structure). While the "copy to" option works fine (yea, takes longer than I expected), but the "move to" option moved the files to the recycle bin of the Team Site, and I had to spend a whole day retrieving all those files. I am confused now, it is supposed to happen? How does this work?
Thanks,
Suparna
- Birgir Rafn ÞráinssonMar 06, 2019Copper Contributor
Hi
I'm still looking for the optimal way of transferring the content of a document library between sharepoint sites.
I'm using Sharepoint Online (Office 365). The originating document library is a modern experience library and belongs to a modern experience team site which is a subsite of a modern experience communication site collection. The receiving document is also a modern experience library belonging to a modern experience teams site, a subsite of a modern experience team site collection. The content consists of multiple files and folders (numbers in thousands but always less than 5000 per folder). Individual files can be very large (a few gigabites) and the total size of the library is in tens of gigabites.
Using the OneDrive sync client requires a download (and then upload) of a local copy of all content of the document library. This is not a good option as it requires puts demands on local resources such as bandwidth and computer. Also the sync does not move the version history, only the newest version. The sync takes a long time and sometimes nothing happens for a long time with the message "sync delays caused by service load". So basically not an option.
The "Move To" feature found in the library takes a very long time and worse, when selecting all folders at the top level of the library and selecting "Move To" it actually does not move everything. After 24hrs. of processing (this was not a very big library) some content was left behind in the old library. So basically not an option.
Using a 3rd party tool (assuming there is such a tool that can move content of very large document libraries between site collections) is not an option due to cost.
Any other options you can point out?
Regards,
Birgir