Move To Keeps Many Files in Original Folder

Steel Contributor

I've now tried this with multiple folders and every time I do this, it leaves many files and folders in the original location, even though it says it completed successfully.

 

For example, I'm moving a project from our Active Subsite into our Completed Subsite.  This could be 5Gb+ so it takes some time and could be a 1,000 files.  Once it's done, it says it's 100% Done.  I go to the Active site and it's still there, although not all of it.  It's also in the Completed Subsite.

 

Does it not do a check after to ensure it actually did "Move"?  I'm not doing Copy To.  

 

Since this doesn't work, what is the other way to Move large numbers of files between sites to make sure they are removed from the site?  I can't use the SharePoint Migration Tool as that moves entire document libraries and I only want to move 1 folder from it to another site. 

4 Replies
We face the same issues and also opened ticket with Microsoft but without real outcome. Even with a folder containing 200 files and 250mb total we have Multiples issues. My recommendation will be used Powershell scripting or move the folder in a new library within your current site then use Mover (free Migration tool by Microsoft) to move the entire library (which only contains your folder) to the new SharePoint destination.

Hi @luvsql ,

 

Two things here:-

 

The Move To functional hasn't worked correctly for years. What I found was anything over 20 ish items select would fail. Not sure if that  is still the case. 

 

The issue you mention may be to do with the fact that the files are queued up in the background. First it does a move and at the same time it queues up a delete per file. I have seen 100GB take upwards of 8 hours to delete from the original location when all the data has moved to the new location. This was a couple of weeks ago. 

 

If those don't describe your issue then as the other reply said Mover.io might be a good bet. 

@jab365cloud I just setup the Mover Migration Tool, however, this will not work if moving from SharePoint to SharePoint (only supports say from Box to SharePoint).


When I tried to setup O365 as the source and destination I get this.  So if we can't use SharePoint's Move To, nor the Mover tool, what do we do???

 

Destination and Source are Same

You selected 'Office 365 (OneDrive/SharePoint Admin)' as both the source and destination.

You may not create transfers between the same connector.

Please select a different Destination or Source.

If you actually intended to do this copy, please use your storage provider (Office365) tools.

sorry @luvsql my mistake about Mover. It allow SharePoint to SharePoint but from/to different tenant. This leave you different options. Move from SharePoint to OneDrive for Business, then OneDrive for Business to SharePoint. If you have an other tenant you can use this other tenant or create one for free with the M365 Dev Program (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program). Otherwise you can try the trial of Sharegate but I can't say if they have a volume limitation.

 

Finally you can build your own PowerShell scripting or using the Copy-PnPFile from the PnP-PowerShell provided by the community. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/copy-pnpfile?view=sharepoint-ps