"Site Content" and "Open with explorer" are showing different number of items for a Document lib

Steel Contributor

I have a document library inside my modern communication team site. now from "Site Content" the document library has 6802 items as follow:-

 

test documents.png

 

now i went to the document library using classic interface >> under "Library" tab >> i click on "Open with explorer" , as follow:-

 

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.png

 

i was able to access the library inside my pc. but when i right click on the document library folder >> "Properties" >> i got that the docuemnt library contain  only 6332 items (5471 + 861), as follow:-

 

test45645645.png

so what is the reason for this differences ? and which number is the accurate one?

Thanks

9 Replies
I would trust the SharePoint number more. But only thing that might be happening maybe some of your folders or files have illegal characters that windows doesn't read causing the mismatch. Or folders with permissions you don't have(assume your site collection admin on the site so wouldn't be the case).
Also the hidden files in the library could not be taken into account in the Windows count...
Also, files that are not yet checked in will not appear in windows explorer count

@Chris Webb wrote:
I would trust the SharePoint number more. But only thing that might be happening maybe some of your folders or files have illegal characters that windows doesn't read causing the mismatch. Or folders with permissions you don't have(assume your site collection admin on the site so wouldn't be the case).

@Chris Webbthanks for the reply.. so you mean there might be files will illegal characters.. and those files will work well on sharepoint while can not be synced or viewed using windows explorer? if this is the case then is there away to get what are those files and folders? 

second point. for the permission now i am login using the office 365 global admin, so i can view everything...

what are your thoughts,, as currently i am a bit confused, if i do have problem or not?

Note, not sure if it can help in understanding what is going on.. now the files inside the document library where saved inside a file share on windows server 2012, and i have used a third party tool named sharegate to migrate them, where the migration went smoothly without errors..


@Juan Carlos González Martín wrote:
Also the hidden files in the library could not be taken into account in the Windows count...

@Juan Carlos González Martín  good point, but is there a way inside sharepoint to have a report of these hidden files? so the report might explain the gap between the 2 numbers which i am getting .....

second question. now in my case i chose to show hidden files inside explorer,, so will this still eliminate them from the explorer count ??


@Thuyavan Ganesan wrote:
Also, files that are not yet checked in will not appear in windows explorer count

@Thuyavan Ganesan

thanks for the reply,, now i can confirm that i do not have any checked out files, otherwise the migration tool would have raised an error.

 


 

Global admin isn’t enough to see everything. You need to be the team group owner or explicitly set as site collection admin in order to see all files in the library. Make sure you have that permission and try again.

An alternative way of checking would be to create a filtered view to display all folders only so you can see whether it is a discrepancy between folder or file count or both. 

 

You can also display Item Child Count to see whether which specific folders may have had inconsistencies to confirm whether the transfer was successful. Painful but at least you'll be able to isolate it. 

 

Fred


@Chris Webb wrote:
Global admin isn’t enough to see everything. You need to be the team group owner or explicitly set as site collection admin in order to see all files in the library. Make sure you have that permission and try again.

yes i confirmed that the user i am using is the global admin + the site collection admin for the communication modern site (also this user created the site collection, so he was added as site collection admin by default). so i do not think there is any permission issues.. thanks