Deleting Document Library Folders with Content Types is Dangerous
September 19th, 2007 § Leave a Comment
Well, only in certain situations. I was pruning a couple of Document Libraries of empty folders today and noticed either an anomaly or feature that should make you cringe. I opened the Document Library in Explorer View so I could select multiple folders to check the size of them via right-click > properties. It showed 0kb so I thought cool, there’s nothing in here, I can delete it, so I did. But wait!
Not so fast if you’re using Content Types with required/forced metadata. This forces documents to be checked-out by default until the user manually adds in the metadata and checks the file back in. The best part is if they don’t feel like filling out these fields and they leave the files checked-out as a result, the world will never know it exists. Not even the super-SharePoint-admin!
So after I deleted a bunch of supposedly 0kb folders, I went to check the Recycle Bin just for kicks and lo and behold… one of the folders I had just deleted shows to be containing 50MB+ worth of stuff. All invisible because the end-user never bothered to check the file in. Bollocks!
