Copy To function in Teams deleting files

Copper Contributor

Hi,

 

Two of my users are working together to manage our Teams files from a specific Team.

 

They are deliberately NOT deleting anything yet, but making a fresh copy in a new area first. To do this they have been using "Copy To" from the Teams Files section.

 

However both of them have noticed that files are missing from where they previously lived (also other users who rely on these files started shouting... at me...).

 

I trust that both of them have used "copy to" rather than "move to". The documents were found in the sharepoint recycle bin and I'm restoring them from there now, all marked as "deleted by" the users doing the copying.

 

What is going on here?  They are doing th copying at a high level of the tree, rather than file/directory by file/directory - so "copying" thousands of files at once...

 

How do I stop it happening again?

 

Cheers

 

Andy

3 Replies
Hi Andy,
I couldn't replicate this issue on my end.

when you move/copy a document, the original document doesn't go the recycle bin.

on move, SharePoint moves the document +its version history+original dates to the destination. If you copy a document SP just creates a copy of the document (no version history).

If you have a PowerAutomate License you can just create a workflow to copy documents from source to destination. this will prevent the end user's error.
This was done from the Teams client not Sharepoint per se... TBH I haven't been able to replicate the issue either.. But then I have a problem running the Teams client... (but that's a whole other issue!)

@Andy Owen 

behind every Teams site is a SharePoint site. I'd ask the users to copy the documents through SharePoint instead of MS Teams and see if it solves the issue.

In MS Teams open the SP site through Posts or Files tabs and then copy the docs to the new destination.

 

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Good luck!