Sunday, January 20, 2008
EndUserSharePoint.com: How do I move a list or library?
The question of the day comes from Doug in California:
In the Site Settings: Site Admin: Content and Structure view I am able to move Sites, but not any Lists or Libraries. Is this correct functionality?
Doug – I do believe this is by design. In every environment I’ve attempted to move lists/libraries, I’ve not been able to do it. This includes when I have built a brand new virtual machine with a fresh copy of SharePoint installed. It would be nice if there were an easy way for users to migrate the individual items, but there’s nothing OOTB that does this.
Chris
I guess the real question is “How can I move a list or library?” I would do it by saving it as a template, carrying the content along with it. After implementing the template, delete it from the template gallery.
This assumes you have permission to save templates and most people won’t. Does anyone have a better solution for the typical End User?
Mark,
There’s also the potential to find third party tools to assist in this. You could try searching CodePlex for tools, but I’ve not done any searches at this time. I do believe you can also make use of SharePoint Designer to move content in a list or library between sites. However, SharePoint Designer still requires specific rights to be granted to the end-user.
I would be interested to know if anyone knows of any good third party tools or resources for move lists/libraries between sites.
If I remember correctly, you were able to copy / move lists with MOSS 2007 B2 TR however it was disabled in RTM.
If anyone out there still has a B2TR environment up and running, perhaps you can confirm.
Thanks,
Paul Liebrand
http://liebrand.wordpress.com
I believe you can do this with the beefed up version of STSADM. I’ve used some of the custom extensions in a production environment successfully and it’s a life saver.
http://stsadm.blogspot.com/2007/11/import-export-copy-and-delete-lists.html
The other way is to create another list or library on your destination site and then ‘move’ the contents from the source list/library. This will preserve the metadata as well.
Henry,
This will work for many of the column types, but person column types may not transfer nicely. I haven’t attempted this in a test environment, but you are absolutely right for simple lists.
To clarify, open the list with a datasheet view, select all the items, copy them and then go to the other list and using the dataview, paste the items into the new list. Is this what you are describing?
Sushant,
Thanks for pointing this out. I’m going to investigate these tools as soon as I get SP1 installed on my test box. However, STSADM is not accessible to most end-users (and since it is a command-line tool, it can be difficult to use for a novice).
You do bring out the point this could be done by the server administrator, so if all else fails, there might be a way to do it.
Hey Chris, I’ve just posted a write-up here:
http://blog.henryong.com/2008/01/21/how-to-movemigrate-sharepoint-list-itemsdocuments-and-preserve-metadata-properties-at-the-same-time/
Henry,
Wow! Thanks for providing this tip! I can’t tell you the number of times I get a question like this and need to be able to move the items. You’ve just made me a very happy Sharepoint Administrator!
You’re very welcome! I’m just glad I beat you guys to the punch on this one. Every time you guys post, I have to scratch another one off my list! =(
Hi,
What about moving a list on WSS 3.0, anyone knows how to do it? the save as template works fine, but only in case that the list isn’t to large, I have updated the maximum size allowed… nothing is working… I also tryied with SP designer and export web package… and no result as well.
Any ideas ?
Thank
Hi
I was experimenting migrating a list from one site to another..
The list was too large to be stored as a template..
So what I did was
1. store the columns as template without checking the box “include content”.
2. create new list using the template
3. move those data using the method Henry mentioned – manage content and structure..
This enabled me to migrate list without losing the field validation rules I have created for each field.
http://blog.henryong.com/2008/01/21/how-to-movemigrate-sharepoint-list-itemsdocuments-and-preserve-metadata-properties-at-the-same-time/ thank you Henry, this works great with the site collection. I have used it .
I have one more requirement that I need to move all the list/documents from WSSV3 site to Sharepoint 2007 site between two servers. I need to move only list and documents with metadata not full migration of site collection.
I really appreciate the suggestion.