Can SharePoint Online copy files from one site collection to other?

[Music] today I want to copy some files from one library in one site collection to another library in a different site Fletcher sounds pretty easy right let's see okay to see how the copy file works I created two site collections one of them is site collection a and the other one is site collection B there are modern sites and I'm actually using their built in documents library so in the source which is going to be site collection a I created two folders and inside every single one of them I uploaded a couple of files same thing on site collection B site collection B again is a modern site so if I click on documents you see there is an empty library that there is nothing inside it so I'm trying to copy the files from source to destination which is site collection B to do that I simply select the folders that I want to copy and I say copy - of course I can use move but if I use move then there will be nothing here to compare and the main reasons I'm building this video is comparing it so my destination is going to be site collection B it shows me nothing else here because there is only one library there that I can actually upload files to if there is more libraries this copy tool shows me different libraries here in the destination library I can create folder or I can just copy to the root of the library that is there I just create a folder and I call it my copied photos and I click on this check mark and now if I go to site collection B you will see that a folder is created I picked this folder and I say copy all the files here and a couple of seconds all the files are there complete it and I just go to site collection and I open this folder and I see if files are here as simple as that and if I just open it files are there seems pretty easy but not as you think now let's lift the hood and see what they've actually done and if sharepoint did what we were expecting to do if i go to the source library and i open folder one you see there is a file called test file - and under this test file - I actually added some metadata here to f1 and f2 that you are my fields first thing that I want to see a is I want to examine that if these values are there in the destination so I go to the destination I open folder 1 and I see great f1 and f2 are actually transferred here the interesting part is that although there are different column types let me just show you something very interesting here and if I scroll down f2 is actually a text here while actually in the source it was a choice field so great so far I'm very happy with that next thing that I want to check is all the content types actually transferred to do that I want to show you a little bit more of this field so I go to edit current view and I add 2 more fields to it so for this field I add content type and I also add titles and I click OK same thing destination and I edit current view and I add two fields which is content type and also the title ok I click OK and you will see a little bit more into it so if I just go to folder one now I have a little bit more to compare so in the source I have test file one which is actually document without any metadata this file test file one if I scroll to the right you will see title is copied and there is nothing else inside it great I'm happy test file two is also document and it has fields we noticed that fields are actually copied for this one third one is a little bit more interesting third one is actually a different content type that I've created and I will explain a little bit more into that and if I go to the destination I see this one is a Cell document content type don't get me wrong content type is actually enabled for this library so let me take you to the setting of this library you will see if I click on advanced in the destination hello management of content type is enabled and if I go to the library setting again the only thing is that I haven't added any other content types to it so I simply conclude that if you want to transfer some content types from one site collection to another site collection you got to make sure the content type is added to both the libraries in source and destination so this one felt that this stage copy doesn't make any changes in the library but then let's go and make a little bit of changes in the library copy the files again and see what we get out of it I delete all the files I transferred here and this time before I move the files I go to the library setting and I add the content types that I have there now here is the thing there are two content types one of them is test global content type which is a global content type I've actually deployed it to SharePoint content type up let me show you so I've actually added it here under custom content types it's called test global content right the other content type is a local content type that I created for this site collection so in the destination I go to my destination library inside collection B and a site collection B to the library I add from existing site content types and I pick up the custom content types and I add test Global Content ID when I click OK alright so now the library that we have has document and test Global Content type so I go to the library itself which is empty now and I copy the files again so from source I go to the root and I pick both of them and I just copy them to site collection B site collection B and I call it my files check I click on it when I say copy here copy completed I just click on here I go to my destination folder 1 and this time I see the content type is actually transferred this gives you one very good reason to manage your content types in the SharePoint content type up rather than creating islands of content types in the front side collection because as you know site collection is the boundary for the content type so when you define a content type or side column they are limited to the scope of that site collection unless you define it in the content type hub and you publish it content type hub has been added to share points in SharePoint 2010 and if you really want to know a little bit more about it just put it down in the comment and I will put a video about it and I will take you through all the details of content type up so the first question is answered or the content types copied yes Kondo types are copied as long as we have them in the metadata fields yes we notice that you are copied now we come up to the most important part how about the permissions when we copy the files today does it copy the permission there is one way to find out and that is just going to our libraries and see if I go to my source under folder - there are couple of files they are all document for every single one of them I use different permission sets so for one of them I'm using the default permission so whatever that is there in the library it inherits second one whatever that was there I just added approver one for the last one I created a group in the site collection a called Group one I also added a user called contributor one and here is the interesting part approver one and contributor one are actually users so I expect these users be available in both sites because they are defined globally for their SharePoint tenancy while Group one is defined under site collection a so unless group one is there inside collection B we shouldn't see it one more thing that you need to know is that for none of them I actually broke the security inherit for the last one I broke two security inheritance and I removed every single user so only Group one and contributor one have access to it let's see how the destination looks like so if I go to the destination on the Y files now for security we are looking into folder - let's see how the permissions are so I click on this one and I click on info so test file five I don't expect any surprises so it was inheriting from the site collection eh I expect that to inherit from site collection eh so nothing special when it comes to test file six let me show you the groups here you can see approval one myself as the site collection administrators three other groups that they are built-in site groups have access to it so only one additional user is added let's go to the destination and see if these permissions are transferred people looking into file 6 so I come here file 6 is selected and if I scroll down you will see Ali Rezai than I did 3 groups are added but the user that I added is not added conclusion users are not transferred let's go to the other one the last one which I actually broke the permission inheritance so I have group 1 and contributor 1 so if I scroll down you will see contributor one has access in source group one has access and nobody else just me as a site collection administrator let's go to site collection B and see what has happened in the destination if I scroll down here I see it's me three other groups and nothing else having said that if I take you to the site collection permission and if I go to advanced permissions you'll see that the group one does not exist here so no surprise that the group is not added but one thing that I want to see in this group is that if I go to this library now and under folder to test 8 in the source as I told you I broke the security inheritance I want to see if in the destination security inheritance or permission inheritance is actually broken so we go to manage access we go to advanced and you see that no it actually inherits from the library wide if I go back to my source and I select this one manage access and I go to advanced you will see actually the permission is broken so we come to the point that no permissions are not copied so be careful if you have confidential files in the source and you expect them to be transferred to the destination you cannot rely on it even if they are part of the SharePoint users okay here is our conclusion we learned when copying files metadata is not transferred we also learned when we copy files content types are transferred if they are defined in the content type of local content types are not transferred we also learned that unique permissions are not transferred so whatever the permission is in the destination all the files or and folders inherit from the parent fantastic but so what these are all useless facts that we just learned experimenting a file copy but they actually should learn from this presentation is this always define and manage your content types in the content type hub govern them manage them control them and have some quiet lines around content types don't let anybody go to any site or any site collection create their own content types have a level of control over it second thing is avoid item level permissions at any cost I really can't understand the why companies want item level permission after so many years item level permission to me sounds a little bit of disorganized or embedded world a little bit of chaos in managing permissions only I and James should have access to this file is absolute nonsense in a corporate environment in an enterprise environment there should be a policy that defines whether this person or not should have access to these files and it's not that person that role or any person or any member of that specific role and the final conclusion is carefully planned file transfer before you click copy button ok thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Alireza Aliabadi

Views: 2,892

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: SharePoint Online, SharePoint File Copy, Content Types, Permissions, Item Level Permission

Id: ktX1H0bMfw8

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 15 2018