4,590 questions
SharePoint Online - Browser Back Functionality Glitches In Document Libraries
Yasmeen
236
Reputation points
Hi there,
The biggest complaint I'm getting from users who just moved over from a classic SharePoint site to a modern SharePoint site is browser back functionality.
Here's the issue, we're in a Document Library and click on a file (by default the file opens in the same browser window), and when we click the browser back button, it does not bring us back to the previous page, it usually brings us much further back in the document library folder structure.
Is there a way to fix this glitch? It's causing unnecessary navigation jumps that have to be constantly overcorrected.
Thanks,
Yasmeen
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Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,596 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff2023-02-17T08:05:01.03+00:00 Hi @Yasmeen ,
What do you mean "we're in a Document Library and click on a file (by default the file opens in the same browser window), and when we click the browser back button, it does not bring us back to the previous page, it usually brings us much further back in the document library folder structure."? It would be great to provide some screenshots to make it more clearly.
In my environment, when I click a document in a library, it would open in a new tab in the browse. And the browser back button is gray on the document page. Just like below:
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Yasmeen 236 Reputation points
2023-02-17T19:45:25.98+00:00 How did you setup your SharePoint site so it opens files in a new browser tab? This too is a problem I'm trying to solve for and seems linked to the browser back functionality.
Perhaps you have Open Documents in Client Applications by Default activated in site collection features? Which may be why the word doc you clicked opened in a new browser tab, and you can't replicate the issue we're having with the browser back functionality.
If you do have it activated, this site collection feature only helps with new browser tabs of Office files:
From reading online, with modern SharePoint sites, by default when you click on a file, they open up in the same browser window. Accordingly, when you hit the back button, half the time you're not taken back to the previous page, but further back in the document library folder structure.
It's kind of similar to this issue, but we're not in a web-part and hitting the browser back button, we're directly in a document library:
I've included screenshots, most of our files are PDFs that when you click on the file (screenshot 1), open in the same browser window by default (screenshot 2), and then most of the time the browser back functionality glitches and we're taken further back in the document library folder structure than the previous page (screenshot 3).
For PDF issues, I found these two postings online:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sharepoint/sharepoint-online-open-pdf-in-new-tab/m-p/3720657
Is there a latest way to get PDFs to open in a new browser tab by default or fix the browser back functionality so it stops glitching?
Thanks,
Yasmeen
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