SharePoint app is creating duplicated channel folders inside Teams

Question

Hello,

We are experiencing an unexpected behaviour with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.

In our Team, some channels behave as expected: when we open the Files tab of a channel, we immediately see the project folders and files.

However, in many other channels, Teams/SharePoint has created an additional subfolder with exactly the same name as the channel inside the channel’s root folder. The result is a nested structure like this:

Because of this, users have to click twice to access the actual content. This also causes confusion and slows down navigation.

The strange part is that:

Most channels have this duplicated nested folder,

but some channels do NOT – their content appears directly under the Files tab, which is the preferred behaviour.

We have not intentionally created or renamed these nested folders.

Questions:

Why is Teams/SharePoint creating these duplicate subfolders only in some channels but not others?

Is this an expected system behaviour or a configuration issue?

What is the recommended and safest way to fix this without breaking existing file paths or Teams/SharePoint links?

Is there a way to prevent this nested duplicate structure from happening again in the future?

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Any guidance or explanation would be very helpful. Thank you!

Answer 1

Hello @Durgun-3072

Welcome to Q&A forum!

Thank you for detailed information.

I see that you intended to share images related to this issue. Could you please send them via private message so I can review them and ensure confidentiality?

Once you’ve sent the images, I’ll provide a clearer explanation to help address your issue more effectively.

For your reference:

Each standard channel in Microsoft Teams maps to a folder in the team’s SharePoint document library. When you upload files directly in the channel’s Files tab, they are stored in that corresponding folder.

Nested Folder Issue: Extra subfolders typically appear when:

• Files were uploaded via SharePoint instead of Teams.
• Someone used Add cloud storage or linked another library.
• A Teams app or tab (e.g., Planner, OneNote) created its own folder.
• The channel was renamed after creation (Teams retains the original folder and adds a new one).

Finally, when I double-checked this issue, I noticed that a team with three channels created three corresponding folders in the SharePoint document section.

If this doesn’t match your situation, please share a few more details, and I’ll do my best to assist you further.

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