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mtarler's avatar
mtarler
Silver Contributor
Feb 28, 2020
Solved

versioning fails when copying

I apologize if this is answered elsewhere but I couldn't find it.   So we have multiple libraries of which 1 is 'controlled' and has versioning turned on.  I am trying to use the versioning to maint...
SharePoint Online Versioning
  • Norman Young's avatar
    Norman Young
    Mar 03, 2020

    Hi mtarler,

     

    I thought a custom permission level would work but it did not. I could not find a site, document library or versioning setting that would help either.

     

    This is not ideal, but you can create a trigger to notify you when a file is deleted using Power Automate. This will provide an opportunity to intervene and restore the file (and version history) from the site recycle bin. 

     

    I hope this helps.

     

    Norm

virendrak's avatar
virendrak
Iron Contributor
Dec 15, 2025

When you use Move To or Copy To in SharePoint Online:

  • If the file name is the same in the destination library: SharePoint will not create a duplicate. Instead, it will treat the incoming file as an update to the existing one. The destination file will get a new version added on top of the existing version history.
  • If the file name is different in the destination library: SharePoint will create a new file entirely, with its own item ID and version history starting fresh.
emmaaa27's avatar
emmaaa27
Copper Contributor
Dec 15, 2025

Hi Virendrak, 

 

Thanks for the reply, although this doesn't ring true in my experience. When using the 'Move To' function to move a document out of the working library into the controlled library - where previous versions already exist - even with the file name being exactly the same, all previous versions seem to be overwritten and lost.