Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites

"When I create new pages on a site, they don't go into the subfolder I've created, they always go in the root of the library?"

"How can I use the CQWP to find pages in a specific subfolder in the Pages list in my Publishing site?"

"I'm having [insert just about anything] issue and I'm using subfolders in my ?pages library in my Publishing site. How can I fix this?"

I get some sort of a variation of these three questions at least once every two weeks. In an effort to provide some sort of proactive support, I want to point people to a Microsoft knowledge base article that explicitly states that using subfolders in the Pages library within a Publishing site is not supported:

» #948614 - New pages that are created in a subfolder of a Pages library of SharePoint Server 2007 are saved in the root of the Pages library

[Updated 5/19/2008 @ 5p] Link fixed.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,moss,publishing site,wcm

posted on Monday, May 19, 2008 10:43 AM

Feedback

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 5/19/2008 4:50 PM John Ross

Is that link going to the right place? I know you are #3 on Joel's list (kudos btw) - but I don't think that's where that link is supposed to go.

-JR

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 5/19/2008 4:56 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

John-
Thanks... fixed.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 5/30/2008 11:24 AM Andy Burns

Any idea why these aren't supported? Is there a technology limitation?

A couple of our customers have really deep site hierarchies, but only because they are determined to have deep hierarchies of content. To be honest, it doesn't seem an unreasonable desire in the context of what they're doing.

Folders might provide a nice alternative to all those (dozens of) sites.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 5/30/2008 12:15 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Andy-
I don't have a reason... it just isn't supported and thus, it's not something I would recommend. In fact, it is something I would recommend against.

Having subsites over folders provide more flexibility and management for oranizationa and encapsulating content & permissions. I don't see how this is a negative and using subfolders are a positive.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 5/30/2008 1:53 PM Spence

Andy -

Sites are the way to go. You don't lose anything by using them (even for deep hierarchies). Indeed this way provides significantly more scalability than nested folders would do. The additional flexibility offered by Sites is a major benefit, even if it's not utilised initially.

This is not a technology limitation, but a design choice on the part of the product team for the 2007 release. The vast majority of WCM systems which scale have this container concept and remember we are talking Sites (aka Webs) here, not Site Collections.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 8/12/2010 3:22 AM Ram

Agree to the discussion points,
I am working on a design project for implementing a global Intranet. I have one site collection and sub-sites for each of the Lines of businesses, Departments and Business units. Each of the sites are based on the Minimal Publishing site definition. As we understand each of the sites can have only one page library and not more than 2000 article pages within those page libraries.

I see it as a major limitation for a global client where he may exhaust the limit of 2000 pages for each of the LOB, DEPTs and BU's.

Let me know how you guys are taking care of the limitations of the page library in such scenario for a global client.

regards
ram

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 8/13/2010 11:55 AM AC [MVP SharePoint]

@Ram - Not true... the 2000 "limit" is a guideline. Well designed navigation can allow you to have many more in there. I've done it many times. However, the guidance is to break the library up into multiple groups.

Folders will work in 2007, but a lot of stuff doesn't incorporate them, such as when pages are created they are put in the root all the time. Don't think the Publishing navigation incorporates it either OOTB.

FWIW, SharePoint 2010 does provide support for folders in the Pages libraries.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 11/4/2010 7:13 AM ram

Andrew,

The discussion is going in good direction, alas one thing i would like to take out of this discussion with some good basis points for my design responsibility on global intranet.

1. What is the limit, and where do i stop and say after 2000 pages in the pages library,

2. what if after 2500 pages the system goes slow and what is the remedy, i know the pages library does not support sub-folders, and i do not intend to use, unless andrew if you can provide me a good documentation that says otherwise and how to manage them

3. sometime back, i had asked this question to a MCS guy (Microsoft consulting services) for the benefits of using the normal document library to have a default content type of pages and use the document library to store pages rather than the page library with its soft 2000 limits.

4. Last but not the least, is Andrew your point where well designed navigation can allow more pages in the page library, would really like to understand this.

Regards
ram

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 11/4/2010 7:52 PM AC [MVP SharePoint]

@Ram -
1) There's no set limit... performance just starts to degrade as you go over 2000... just like other guidance MSFT provides for document libraries and lists.
2) You should move pages into subsites... there's got to be a way to group your 2000+ pages into subcategories.
3) You can't use multiple libraries in one site to render pages in a WCM site... it can only have exactly one Pages library.
4) Sorry... I don't have any examples of this I can share.

I think you're trying to find a way to get 2000+ pages in one library. This is not the correct approach. It all boils down to #2 above... there must be a better way to subclassify these pages into smaller groups.

However, FWIW, SharePoint 2010 supports folders in the Pages library.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 11/12/2010 9:33 AM Pranav

Hi,

Here there is a workaround to achieve the functionality to create pages in the Pages Library even in the folders

inside-sharepoint.blogspot.com/.../...ary-for.html

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 11/18/2010 10:03 PM AC [MVP SharePoint]

Pranav- Sorry, but I don't think this is a good idea. Providing a workaround for something that isn't support due to various things is not the approach I'd recommend. Rather, if you need folders, you likely should be grouping your content into multiple subsites.

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 1/5/2011 9:32 AM Arup

Hi Andrew,

I have used heavily nested publishing site hierarchies to maintain the structure for internet facing site. The site structure is maintained by external console app based on stored data in another Content Management System. So console application is running every night and provisioning site every time if there is any structural change in Content Management System. So site provisioning is taking too much time (around 1 minute) and sometimes the console app is hanged. So I to bypassing site provisioning, folder structure want to introduce. So please advice me.

Thanks,
Arup

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 7/29/2011 10:27 AM Sam

Have things changed at all for SP 2010?

# re: Subfolders are *not* Supported in the Pages Library in MOSS Publishing Sites 7/29/2011 11:53 AM AC [MVP SharePoint]

@Sam - Yup, they are supported in SharePoint Server 2010 Publishing Sites.

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