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SharePoint Online - Cannot move folder to a different site
I'm trying to use the 'Move To' function to move a folder to a library on a different site. Typically, I select the folder, click "Move To", and select a site from the information panel. Today I see ...
It has been fixed. "Move" works for big files (over 600MB) and many items as before.
Kimberly Roetman I have gotten around this, by synchronising the site(s) and using Windows File Explorer to move the files/folders. The main limitation to this is how much physical drive you have for the move, you need double the size of the content to be moved. I will explain by way of our own current situation.
Our College's very old Dell Hyperserver storage system had been haemorrhaging and throwing larger quantities of warning of potential failure though most of 2020. So we took the leap and have/are moving everything to SharePoint. The Photo Archive alone is about 2Tb spanning back to 2009 with more than 450,000 files+folders.
I started laying out the individual year using the SharePoint Photo Library App(s). However, they end up as individual Libraries with no association to the default Document Library, which after uploading a couple of years (2020-2019) the leadership team decide don't want, but want ALL the folders structured in the Document Library. Hence, possibly the same/similar situation you are in. Each year's content is about 160Gb to 250Gb of average 30+ thousand files/images, mostly high resolution images.
I struggle to move very small quantities of files (less than 1500 files) within SharePoint Online. Therefore, I have found it easier to sync the SharePoint Libraries to my computer and use Windows file explorer.
There are limitation and minor consequences.
- Try not to move more 30,000 files at a time (I have had dropouts doing more and becomes another pain to work out where I'm up to).
- As mentioned earlier you need twice the size you are moving, because everything become "Always keep on this device" for both locations. Your computer literally download and then uploads the entire content, wait for the entire 'batch' process to complete.
- Hence, this will take a significant amount to time, especially to re-upload. I have a remote laptop plugged directly into that same switch our Fibre optic comes into the premises. (and I'm moving into week 3 of this project, with the laptop running 24/7. Only 3 more year of content to go, yeah....).
- With the computer downloading then uploading the content, it also in between deletes the content from the old Library structure on SharePoint and SharePoint registers the deletion in both the Recycling Bin and the Retention policy (if you have it switched on), which may impact on your Site overall storage capacity. After moving 163Gb of the year 2020 content, the Site thought it had about 500Gb of content somewhere on the site.
- A final suggestion especially if you are low on drive space, is to periodically "Free up Space" from the target Library. Wait for this process to completely finish before doing the next batch. Otherwise, (and you also may get this occasionally anyway), will get a SharePoint/OneDrive cache error that will require a "chkdsk /f /r" to correct (I have only had 3 in all the 2 weeks so far).
As you can see it very doable, just very resource and time-consuming.
Apologies for the long-winded explanation.
BrBarry
RE: "As you can see it very doable, just very resource and time-consuming. Apologies for the long-winded explanation. "
No apology needed, I very much appreciate you detailing all that out! I've already been following that method for a few months but you did a great job of documenting it.
'Tis a very ridiculous and convoluted process, one would think Microsoft could do better than this, but apparently not.
One aspect that you didn't highlight is that all this downloading/uploading is using whatever network your workstation computer is on, so in my case it hogs my home bandwidth unless I meter (in the ODFB Network settings) or more often than not, I open those up full and let the operations run overnight. Still counts against my ISP quota cap of course. 😞
RE: "As you can see it very doable, just very resource and time-consuming. Apologies for the long-winded explanation. "
No apology needed, I very much appreciate you detailing all that out! I've already been following that method for a few months but you did a great job of documenting it.
'Tis a very ridiculous and convoluted process, one would think Microsoft could do better than this, but apparently not.
One aspect that you didn't highlight is that all this downloading/uploading is using whatever network your workstation computer is on, so in my case it hogs my home bandwidth unless I meter (in the ODFB Network settings) or more often than not, I open those up full and let the operations run overnight. Still counts against my ISP quota cap of course. 😞
