Description Column in Libraries

Brass Contributor

The Description column has recently appeared in all existing and new libraries in our tenant. A Description column is commonly used in Lists, but rarely in Document libraries. We do not see added value in this column and we are removing the column for all new and when we encounter in existing libraries. Why the push to our tenant ?

8 Replies
Microsoft release new features on a rolling basis and push them to every tenant, not just yours!
Hi Laurie - thanks for the call out on this. I just now noticed this in our tenant as well. Frustrating when these things get pushed out with nothing in the message center - makes end users feel like they're crazy.
Especially when it's creating extra work to clean up and remove it ...
Yes I get that and I've been through tickets with Microsoft on this and other issues. But it doesn't make any logical sense in a Library, a List, but not a Library and now we're stuck with extra work to clean up and remove it.
Yeah, I see the column also...the interesting thing here is that the column is not part of the Document content type at the site level. It seems it has been added to every document library in a SPO tenant
Exactly - it's just so random ... acting like a system column like Created/Modified. Again, lists make sense, but rarely in a library at least in our humble opinions ;)

Yes, we need an explanation for this please.  Things get even more confusing when you use Document Sets because you end up with 2 columns called Description, one attached to the Doc Set Content Type and the other free floating.  I have just been deleting the free-floating one

@Kaboodle_Colin This was a very concern as well of the possible impact of an existing Description column in a library ... As you've confirmed, there are not 2 and that is primary for potential errors!