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johnjohn-Peter's avatar
johnjohn-Peter
Iron Contributor
Feb 23, 2025

Why custom list item versions do not preserve the attachments when restore an old version

I have a custom list which contain custom content type and it allow attachments, now i am storing 100 item versions ..

but i have noted when i restore a previous version of the list item, it will always keep the current attachment and ignore the version attachment, is this a limitation inside SharePoint custom list? and is there any workarounds?

For example on version 1, i have an attachment named 1.docx

 

 

and on version 2, i have uploaded another attachment named 2.docx ans remove 1.docx, 

 

but when i restore the item to version 1, i got 2.docx as the attachment instead of 1.docx,

 

Any advice ?

 

Thanks

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  • RobSoto's avatar
    RobSoto
    Iron Contributor
    Feb 24, 2025

    Hi johnjohn-Peter ,

    The list item creation and upload of the attachment creates two versions immediately. I created a custom list and added an item. I then checked version history right away and saw two versions.

    I then deleted the attachment and replaced it with a new version and checked version history again. There were 4 versions.

    This means that restoring an item to a previous version won't also restore the attachment because that action creates a completely separate version. It's also not easy to spot which version is related to the new attachment. I don't see any option around this within a list. If the file attachment is critical to your process, my recommendation would be to shift your approach to use a document library and then add the item's metadata there. That way your version history restore process will happen as you want it to. It might be worth trying out in a test library.

    Hope this helps!

    -Rob

     

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