Forum Discussion
SharePoint Online Limits: Should we distribute large document libraries across multiple sites?
- The limit is a site collection limit, so you can put many document libraries in the same site just fine. The biggest issue you will want to concern yourself with besides number of files etc. will be security. After 100k files into a parent folder you can no longer break permission inheritance and thus you cannot share files in those folders unless you can path down enough to get under that limit. So make sure if you have a directory with over 100k Items, you set the permissions on the parent folder prior to moving the files in or you won't be able to. If everything should never have custom permission you should be fine, there really isn't anything preventing using one site with multiple libraries.
The reasons you would use multiple libraries or sites would be settings. For example, retention policies are site level so you would want different sites if different "Libraries" needed different retention periods. Do libraries can have search flags turned off, or have various other settings, and same for sites you would want to consider, but mostly, outside of policies, single site is fine there.
Breaking libraries up helps prevent someone from syncing the "Entire File library" by trying to sync at the root of a library. By having multiples this prevents that goof. Site's have no bearing here in that regard since sync isn't site based.
I know I'm just rambling here just kind of typing as it comes in, you seem to have the idea around splitting into libraries, but for sites, it mainly boils down to another permission level and or policies that can be applied only at site level so if having all libraries in that same container would never be different, then one site would ultimately be fine.
The reasons you would use multiple libraries or sites would be settings. For example, retention policies are site level so you would want different sites if different "Libraries" needed different retention periods. Do libraries can have search flags turned off, or have various other settings, and same for sites you would want to consider, but mostly, outside of policies, single site is fine there.
Breaking libraries up helps prevent someone from syncing the "Entire File library" by trying to sync at the root of a library. By having multiples this prevents that goof. Site's have no bearing here in that regard since sync isn't site based.
I know I'm just rambling here just kind of typing as it comes in, you seem to have the idea around splitting into libraries, but for sites, it mainly boils down to another permission level and or policies that can be applied only at site level so if having all libraries in that same container would never be different, then one site would ultimately be fine.
One question to the 100,000 item limit when breaking permission inheritance: The article https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/customize-permissions-for-a-sharepoint-list-or-library-02d770f3-59eb-4910-a608-5f84cc297782the following:
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When a list or library contains more than 100,000 items, you can’t break permissions inheritance on the list itself. Nor can you re-inherit permissions on the list itself.
When a folder contains more than 100,000 items, you can’t break permissions inheritance on that folder itself. Nor can you re-inherit permissions on that folder itself.
Items within the library or folder hitting the limit (say a single file or folder) won't be impacted--so you could still, for example, break inheritance on any single file inside a library with greater than 100,000 items.
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If I understand correctly, this means that sharing of files and folders (for which permission inheritance needs to be broken) should still be possible for individual items, even if the parent holds more than 100,000 items. If a library or folder contains more than 100,000 items it just cannot be shared itself. Is that correct?
Thanks
Michael