I think it’s been pretty common knowledge that you can open up a Document Library in Windows Explorer view to move mass documents to other folders or libraries. But there’s a drawback to that method because the document’s properties get updated in the process - mainly the modified date/time as well as the user would take on the role of the person that ‘Last modified’ the document. This also applies to copying list data in data sheet view from one list to another.
Some have figured out a different way where you can save the current list or Document Library as a template with content included and redeploying that to other locations. Unfortunately this method will also overwrite the last modified timestamps and also the ‘Created by’ property with the time that the list was recreated and by the person that created it, respectively.
So if you want to move the contents of a SharePoint Document Library or List and be able to preserve the item’s metadata/property values at the same time you should use this method:
1. Create a blank destination List or Document Library. You don’t have to worry about recreating custom fields and whatnot. The move process will do this for you.
2. Go to the ‘Site Content and Structure’ page. You can access this site with either Site Actions > Site Settings or http://portal/_Layouts/sitemanager.aspx
3. Navigate to your source List or Document Library and mark all the items that you would like to have moved. Then click on Actions > Move…
4. You’ll then be prompted with a pop-up that will let you navigate to your destination List or Document Library. After you find that, just press the OK button and you’ll be good to go!
So by using this method, you’ll be able to preserve all of the document properties/metadata while moving list items or documents from one location to another!
68 responses so far ↓
Maxim Shulga // January 22, 2008 at 12:36 am
Interesting post. But I have a problem with it.
What settings source site must have? I have got the next message ” The current operation could not be completed. Try again, or contact your system administrator. The operation did not succeed because the site was not provisioned with publishing resources
” when I try to copy source items. I’m site collection administrator for this site collection
Chris Thomas // January 22, 2008 at 9:52 am
Is this feature only available in SharePoint 2007?, I cannot find the “Content and Structure” option in SharePoint Services v3.0
Henry // January 22, 2008 at 11:31 am
Hey Chris, possibly only for MOSS 2007. I haven’t tried this with WSS v3.
Henry // January 22, 2008 at 11:33 am
Maxim, maybe you have to turn on the Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature? Not sure if it’ll work without it. I’ve only tested this on MOSS 2007 using the Enterprise Collaboration Portal Template.
Maxim Shulga // January 22, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Yes, you’re right.
It seems to me this feature works only for site which was created from the Collaboration Portal template (and may be for other MOSS site templates). It doesn’t work for sites from the usual WSS templates (ie Team Site, Blank Site). At least I didn’t get this feature working with these site templates.
Maxim Shulga // January 23, 2008 at 2:00 am
I was wrong. Now it works with Team Site also. Great!
Josh Felts // January 23, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Another great benefit of using the Site Content and Structure tool to move documents:
If there are pages with links to those documents within the site collection, those links will be updated to the new location.
Frank F // January 23, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Found it, Used it, Loved it…pure genius!
Santosh // January 24, 2008 at 6:55 pm
This post is kind of a solution to my problem but when I tried doing this i get an error indicating that “This feature is not supported for List and Folders”.
It would be helpfull if anyone to help with the following problem.
I am doing Incremental Migration from Lotus notes to Sharepoint. I have successfully generated an XML file for the data from teh Lotus notes. Now I would like to overwrite the Metadata information in teh Sharepoint with the one that I have retrieved from Notes.
Thank you
Gitte Persson // January 31, 2008 at 6:14 am
What if other sites have links to the documents or list items, which you are moving?? Will the links be preserved or is ther another way to do this??
At the moment if you move a document from site A to B. And Site B has a link to site A … the link now opens a blank page.
Thanks.
Gitte Persson
JK // January 31, 2008 at 11:38 pm
How did you get it working? I’m getting
“The current operation could not be completed. Try Again or contact your system administrator. The operation did not succeed because the site was not provisioned with publishing resources”
dre // February 1, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Im getting a file not found error when i try to migrate my sharepoint list using sitemanager
senthil // February 10, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I have tried in my site. In the content and structure, i have selected docs from the src lib and when select the actions menu, i have given only with delete option.Other two options(move,copy) are disabled. Can any one help me out in this. I am using MOSS 2007. My site type is “Team Site”.
Martin Edelius // February 13, 2008 at 1:38 am
This tool isn’t available in WSS 3.0, only MOSS 2007.
There is a stand alone tool developed by a SharePoint “fan” that can help you do this regardless of what version of SharePoint (WSS or MOSS) you’re using but I can’t recall it’s name of the top of my head.
RH // February 20, 2008 at 7:28 am
For senthil, you need to go “into” the list or lib and select the individual items to move, not the list itself.
That said, I’m having issue trying to move 3 list items to a site list above and below the current site:
Attempt to move url(s): https://sharepointqa.company.com/sites/gis/Collaboration/Lists/Tasks/1_.000;https://sharepointqa.company.com/sites/gis/Collaboration/Lists/Tasks/3_.000;https://sharepointqa.company.com/sites/gis/Collaboration/Lists/Tasks/2_.000; failed. Please try again
moss2007sp1 master admin
Thoughts?
John // February 26, 2008 at 5:42 pm
i need move folder to other library,
this folder is content type,
How to do this ?
Thanks.
Mike // February 28, 2008 at 4:17 am
This also seems to have problems with lists containing calculated columns.
Zjos // February 28, 2008 at 6:31 am
Cool! If you take a library with a lookup-column, and you copy the items to a library on another site, the lookup-column is still referencing the list on the original site! Woohooo! Cross-site lookups as a side effect.
Atul // February 29, 2008 at 6:58 am
I need to move content around to a site collection under different web application. Is there a way to do this with meta data intact
Henry // February 29, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Hey Atul, not out of the box but you can do it programmatically .
Is // March 3, 2008 at 8:57 am
When I try this on MOSS 2007 I receive this message no matter what I try. “The destination list is incompatible with the source item.”
The source item is a “Project Task” list under the “Tracking” heading in the create section. I’ve tried copy/move to a blank custom list a blank project tracking list, and a fully customized (identical) project tracking list.
Any ideas?
Henry // March 3, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Hey Is, I’ve come across this a long time ago and the only thing I remember coming up with is that some lists have special schemas that can’t get replicated on a list of a different base template. Your mileage may vary.
Is // March 4, 2008 at 5:39 am
Yeah… thanks. I’m stuck with a broken list and no way of getting it fixed as far as I can tell.
Bray // March 6, 2008 at 10:53 am
This method is cool, but would be extreamly time intensive, in my case , because I can’t move folders. So you have to create an entire subfolder structure first, in each doc library.
TAT // March 7, 2008 at 8:02 am
Great Post! I have never worked with Content and Structure before. I never liked the copy-paste method because of losing the properties. Appreciate the information.
JH // March 10, 2008 at 10:57 am
Great method, but I need to move a Document Library from one site collection to another and in the navigation dialog box I am restricted to the site collection where the source library resides. Any ideas or other methods?
Henry // March 13, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Hey JH, the only other ways I can think of are programmatically.
Jules // March 17, 2008 at 3:31 am
Hi this works nicely on one of our sites after I activated Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature. On other sites however I can’t find this feature in the list to activate??
samuel // March 20, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Great…
Actually I want to move a List content from one sharepoint team site to another team site on other server. It should be done daily.
I want to create a XML Webservice .. Please can anyone help me…
If you have any ideas… Please suggest me
Angela // March 26, 2008 at 6:50 am
Instead of move, I tried to copy an issue tracking list. Everything seems to work perfectly except the “description” column did not get copied. The column was left blank. I even tried matching all the column settings before copying, still did not work. Anything special about the description column?
Thanks in advance.
SharePoint Thinks, Links and Clinks : Move a Site Collection, go west young man // April 4, 2008 at 10:12 am
[...] How to move/migrate SharePoint list items/documents and preserve metadata properties at the same tim… Published Friday, April 04, 2008 7:12 PM by tadd Filed under: SharePoint, STSADM, WSS, Tools, MOSS [...]
Kevin Gauthier // April 11, 2008 at 9:17 am
senthil ,
I have noticed that certain type of document cannot be move, in that case the move to option is disabled. It is a little bit of try and see so you have to uncheck these types. It might also have to do with big files.
hope it helps you.
Kevin // May 9, 2008 at 8:06 am
In testing, I got four files to move to a blank document library. Is there a way to move the files to a non-empty folder? Thanks.
Kevin // May 9, 2008 at 9:38 am
I still have a problem moving to a non-empty folder. When I moved from the (new) doc lib A to folder B, the modified date on the object(s) was/were changed to today. The modified by was not changed. Can we get around this?
Myron Schroner // May 9, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I was excited to give this a try, but it might not work for me… I can’t see the directory structure of the target site from the destination site. They’re both internal to my workplace. Any ideas how to see one from the other?
Thanks!
Henry // May 12, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Hey Myron, this may occur if your 2 sites exist in different site collections.
jcp // May 20, 2008 at 5:17 am
This only works for me when moving a list item from one list to another. If I attempt to move a list item from one folder to another in the same list I get error
Attempt ot move url whatever/13.0 failed. Try again.
any way around this?
MarkvR // May 27, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Great post! Your method works to preserve almost all of the document properties/metadata of all document versions.
However, the modified property of the oldest version of a document (usually version o.1) is set to the date & time that you perfomed the move. This is clearly unwished-for…is there any way to avoid this???
Henry // May 27, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Hey Mark, that might be possible if done programmatically.
Atul // June 4, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Hi ! Please tell how to do this using code for site collections under different web applications in MOSS .. can this also be done for SharePoint 2003 using code ?
Graham // June 24, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Any way to copy/move the source document’s Created date? It’s copying every column except the creation date.
bob // June 24, 2008 at 12:11 pm
i was able to copy list items from a blog post list to custom list type but none of the columns from blog post got created in the destination list
what kind of list should i create to migrate blog post list data
your help is appreciated
thanks
Kersten Penni // June 25, 2008 at 11:41 pm
################################
Maxim Shulga // January 23, 2008 at 2:00 am
I was wrong. Now it works with Team Site also. Great!
################################
Hi Maxim,
how did you get the feature running on your MOSS? We also want to move Content (Lists, Documents etc…) by using “Content and Structure” in WSS Team-Sites. These Teamsites are located in seperate Sitecollections in a MOSS 2007 Server.
Henry // June 26, 2008 at 7:48 am
Hey Kersten, this feature cannot be used across site collections.
bob // June 26, 2008 at 9:48 am
hi henry,
i was able to copy list items from a blog post list to custom list type but none of the columns from blog post got created in the destination list
what kind of list should i create to migrate blog post list data
also when i creating a new posts list within a existing blog site, it says that we can have only one instance of posts list is possible
i want to move over a blog post list to another location, i have various custom columns created, could you suggest how to achieve this
your help is appreciated
thanks
Henry // June 26, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hey Bob, I know that the Blog Doc Libraries are a little bit different as they inherit multiple content types or something like that.
Perhaps you can try creating a new blog site to import to instead of a custom list? Sorry, I haven’t tried moving blog posts. Let us know how it goes. Thanks!
whall // July 11, 2008 at 7:08 am
This is useful - having just migrated to 2007 I’m quite interested in finding out as much as I can so I can help our end users. I’m even more interested in some of the back-end stuff, likeGary LaPointe’s stsadm extension.
I got here by way of Google, asking how I could manually or programmatically change the system-set “created by” field of a list item. For example, we SharePoint Admins use our normal human accounts for most everything, and then sign in as our “super user admin” account when we need to do something.
Inevitably, we inadvertantly add something somewhere as the super user admin and I want to change it back to my normal account for reporting purposes.
If you have a tip, let me know!
Henry // July 12, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Hey Whall, I don’t know of any tools out there but I’m quite sure you can change the created by programmatically. Maybe have some kind of loop going through everything in a particular site switching out a specific ‘Created By’ value with anything you want. Let us know if you find anything!
MMB // July 14, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Referring to comment by RH on February 20, 2008 - I am receiving the same error message - Attempt to move url(s)….failed. Please try again. Anyone have a resolution to this problem?
andytilia // July 15, 2008 at 6:15 am
Henry: Thanks for the excellent tip.
All: I’m having a problem similar to senthil above: disabled move/copy options in content and structure on MOSS 2007.
It’s a discussion board and I’ve tried moving/copying at the board and the item level, but the options are greyed/disabled at both levels. In the same site, I can move list items and documents just fine. It seems the only problem is with discussion boards and their items.
Anyone done this successfully?
Thanks.
MMB // July 18, 2008 at 7:27 am
After turning on the Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature on my test SharePoint server, I was able to move documents and list items using the Content and Structure option without any problems. On my production SharePoint server, I had to do an IISReset after turning on the Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature before I could successfully move items and documents using the Content and Structure option.
Netzzwerg // July 30, 2008 at 6:53 am
Hi folks,
we had the same problem (disabled “move” and “copy” item).
So be sure that you have no docs in your lib being checked out while trying to move the content.
This was the fault when we tried it. After checking in all docs in the lib the menu items “move” and “copy” will appear!
But unfortunately we are facing a lot of problems with look-up columns.
E.g. in our doc library all metadata is transferred to the new destination, but when you upload a new item in the destination one look-up column has lost it “connection” to its data (containing the possible options as a drop-down).
A second list (tasks) is loosing all its metadata in the look-up columns. But when adding a new item to the task list you´ll find all the correct options in the drop-downs from the look-up columns.
We´ve tried the hole move-process twice and alsways the same result… help for frustrated admins is appreciated
BR,
Netzzwerg
Chris Spears // July 31, 2008 at 11:21 am
Henry,
This is a great tip for preserving date/user information if the document already exists in SharePoint. How would you go about preserving date/user information for companies that are just setting up SharePoint and want to migrate years of old documents into the system?
Thanks!
Chris
Henry // August 1, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Hey Chris, I think I’ve seen a partner product that does this but I don’t have the name of the company or software off the top of my head. The product/company is specific to migrating data from file shares to SharePoint.
Henry // August 2, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Hey Chris, I was just going through a copy of Windows IT Pro and noticed a mention of using Robocopy for moving files. I haven’t tried it yet but it says that Robocopy can also copy file attributes. Perhaps you can use it to copy to a SharePoint UNC path.
Henry // August 4, 2008 at 10:24 am
Just tested robocopy and it gets us half way there. The attributes are saved if you view the Document Library in Actions > Open with Windows Explorer but not in the Doc Lib’s web interface.
robocopy source destination /COPY:DAT
Joaquin // August 5, 2008 at 7:27 am
Save yourself the headache!!!!!!
I love sharepoint but the copy / move is restricted to site collection and isnt all that robust… I highly recommend you try this free tool from codeplex…
http://www.codeplex.com/SPDeploymentWizard
AND this tool also maintains the MODIFIED BY and MODIFY DATE… which is like icing on the cake if you ask me!
Henry // August 5, 2008 at 11:48 am
Thanks Joaquin!
Chris Sammut // August 13, 2008 at 4:54 am
this is a great post! But how would I move folders between Lists preserving the metadata?
Thanks
Michael // September 1, 2008 at 12:44 am
Bob
The resaon you dont get the comments copied with the rest of your blog is that the original post and the comments are in two different lists.
I have tried to find a way to achieve the exact same thing as you, but without any luck im affraid.
Ishak // September 8, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Hi, is it possible to copy list from task list to another task list ? If possible, how to do it ? because i was tried to copy but nothing happen.
Thanks
Tracy // September 11, 2008 at 7:55 am
Is it possible to retain document properties captured in the file if it sits in a file share (migrating from file share to SharePoint document library)? When we are migrating files from our file share to SharePoint, the date modified and created by and all that automatically captures the info at time of migration (even if the file is really 5 years old, etc.)
arshad // September 18, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hi, I am trying to move documents from one Document Library to another Document library in a different site inside the same collection. But I am getting below error message. Can anybody help me to figure out why this error message is coming up.
Help appreciated.
Thanks
An error was encountered performing this operation.
prabhu // September 26, 2008 at 1:14 am
hi, while moving documents one doclib to another doclib, the modified column has been changed to current date.
Mark Stich // September 29, 2008 at 10:53 am
Create a template of your list/library.
For those of you with WSS 3.0, I’ve heard that this works (not sure if it also works with MOSS 2007):
1. Go to your list/library page
2. Settings –> Discussion Board Settings (or whatever)
3. Click “Save XXX as template”
4. Fill out form and make sure to check “Include Content”
5. Download the template to your PC
6. Go to new site
7. Site Actions –> Site Settings –> Site Templates
8. Upload the template to the new site
9. Create the new list/library from the template
Thomas // October 5, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I use the built-in tools in SharePoint to move lists…
http://armsinfragilehands.blogspot.com/2008/10/checking-in-multiple-documents-at-once.html
Dave // November 7, 2008 at 5:59 am
Hi,
I also have to export/import a List/library between 2 site collections.
I’ve tried the SPDeploymentWizard. It actually preserves the Created By and Modified By, but overwrites the Created Date with the import date. Do I have to use the “Retain Object Identity”-Option to get the CreatedDate imported correctly?
Alex // November 14, 2008 at 4:45 am
Hi there,
I am emailing you regarding a tricky issue, I hope you could help me in it.
I am working on a project and dealing with so many lists, and of course there are so many “Lookup Fields” between those lists.
Now I want to transfer these lists to a new environment which already has data and I have no idea how to handle that because I don’t want to override the data and of course I want to keep the connections between these Lookup Fields, How can I do that ???
Somehow my problem is pretty close to this entry:
http://objectmix.com/sharepoint/294151-moving-lists-one-sharepoint-server-another.html
So far, the only way I know how to do that is to export the data to Excel and use Access 2007 to import again so its about how to create Lookup fields with the APIs. I have actually tried several times but never gotten around to do it in another better way, do you have any idea or another option/suggestion or code make me able to handle this issue?
I look forward to hearing from you soon please!
Sincerely,
–Alex
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