How many Folders and Nested Folders can be created in SharePoint Online library

Dhamley 31 Reputation points
2022-11-20T07:32:45.693+00:00

Hi Team
We are doing file share migration from onprem to SPO .Hence would like to know how many Folders and Nested Folders can be created in SharePoint Online library .

Is there any limitation ?

Thanks in advance !

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  1. Michael Durkan 12,146 Reputation points MVP
    2022-11-20T08:48:12.817+00:00

    Hi

    check out this article:

    https://natechamberlain.com/2021/12/04/sharepoint-online-file-and-item-limits-size-quantity-nested-folders-and-more/

    The author has stated that he tested with 30 levels of nested folders with no issues.

    This article also looks at the differences between folders and libraries, and recommendations for the structure of both:

    https://sharepointmaven.com/should-i-create-a-folder-or-a-library-on-a-sharepoint-site/

    If this is primarily used for File Storage, you could look at Azure Files as an alternative.

    Hope this helps,

    Thanks

    Michael Durkan

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  2. Emily Du-MSFT 41,536 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2022-11-21T02:45:20.857+00:00

    @Dhamley

    According to this article, SharePoint Online has a limit of 30 million files and folders per library (Sum of folders and files). In each folder, it can contain 5000 files and folders (Sum of folders and files).

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
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  3. Dustin Leasure, MCT 0 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2023-01-17T17:16:14.5833333+00:00

    The answer to this question should be 'none.' While nested folders work really well in an NTFS file share environment, they are actually a hindrance in SPO. Here's what I mean...when the search crawler comes around your SPO library with many nested folders, it ignores the folder names. So, folders are inherently not searchable. Think of the 'depth' of nesting folders and try to turn those folders into a 'flat' list of column headers or 'metadata' about each document. Each column header is searchable metadata, so it makes more sense to create a library with more columns than folders...

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