Ah, folders… What can I say about them that I haven’t said, at least 100 times?
They’re tedious. They bury data in potentially deep structures that can make it frustrating and difficult to ever find again, therefore increasing the likelihood of duplication. They hide important information like “Checked Out.”
In short (and sometimes long) I don’t like them.
However, they’re everywhere! One of the more common things that I hear from folks is that it drives them crazy that they can’t upload folders into SharePoint. I usually try to encourage using the move process as an opportunity to flatten out a client’s file structure and give a little “Blah blah Best Practice... Blah blah Folders are painful in SharePoint… blah blah Views are better… Please, for the love of sanity don’t do it!” spiel before diving in. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
If you are one of those folks that chooses or is perhaps forced to work with folders in SharePoint, let me show you some magic… IF you’re using SharePoint Online and IF you are using the Edge browser.
I did try to upload a folder using Internet Explorer and the modern library view and it was the same old thing; nada. It doesn’t even give an error like the classic view does. It just stares at you like you should know better; which in all honesty, I did. But, as I’m sure you’ve heard before, SPO is an “evergreen” platform. New features are showing up regularly, such as the ability to drag and drop folders.
So, keep that ember of hope burning, SharePoint is continuously growing and evolving. It’s almost like Christmas, every day!
For additional and more in-depth information on this subject watch this JoyofSharePoint webinar: The who what why of rethinking the use of folders in SharePoint.