Top 4 Recommendations to migrate documents to SharePoint

When an organization is shifting to Cloud (Office 365/SharePoint Online), there is a common question of how to migrate documents to SharePoint. In this blog, we are going to see the four ways for you to migrate documents to SharePoint with advantages and disadvantages.

1. Drag & Drop

2. Open with Explorer

3. OneDrive for Business Sync

4. Use a migration tool

Drag & Drop

One of the most common and simplest options to move multiple files to SharePoint is the Drag and Drop feature in SharePoint 2013. You can select numerous files from your system and drag and drop into the document library.

Advantages:

• This option is very quick & easy to use
• This will not require any downloads or migration tools

Disadvantages:

• You can only transfer up to 100 files at the same time
• You Can’t drag & drop folders

Open with Explorer

One of the user-friendly options for SharePoint migration is “Open with Explorer” option, which opens the document library outside SharePoint i.e., in Explorer. This option works, when the user clicks the option “Open with Explorer” button, a new window pops up which has all files and folders in your document library. The special feature, which is present in this option, is you can move your files and folders as you move in your own system, adding to it you can also transfer them to SharePoint

Steps to migrate documents to SharePoint using “Open with Explorer” Option:

• Click on Library Tab on the start of the document library
• Click on Open with Explorer option
• Now a Windows Explorer window will be opened, displaying folders in your document library

Advantage:

• This option helps you in moving both files and folders
• A large set of documents can be moved
• User-friendly and developed interface

Disadvantage:

• This option works only with Internet Explorer browser
• This option is not recommended for moving large sets of documents, as they might hang

OneDrive for Business Sync

OneDrive for Business Sync is one of the greatest options to move documents into SharePoint. This is a similar feature that permits to sync OneDrive or SharePoint document libraries to your system.

Advantages:

• User-friendly
• This option allows you to migrate both files and folders

Disadvantages:

• You can only sync 5000 or less than 5000 files and folders
• This option only works with the Windows platform, not with Ma

Use a Migration Tool

The above three options which we discussed to migrate documents to SharePoint are free but with some limitations. To tackle these limitations and migrate a larger number of documents into SharePoint, we need to use a Migration tool.

Advantage:

• One of the unique options present in this is the ability to maintain document metadata. This is not available in any of the options listed above.
• There is no limitation in the quantity of migrating documents in this option, you can migrate any number of documents into SharePoint
• This option helps in identifying file duplicates and special characters which are not allowed in SharePoint
• You can move whole sites and libraries in this option

Disadvantage:

• This is not a free tool; you need to invest depending on the tool you choose.
• This option requires more time, as you need to be clear in mapping manually