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I am migrating a site from SP2010 to SP2013.

In the old farm there is a document library contain 11,000 pages. About a year ago when user browse the old farm site the error "The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator. " show up. To get around the issue, developer put the pages within subfolders. Problem was solved.

However, when I migrate the site to SP2013 farm. Although all pages still sit within subfolders, I get the "exceeds the list view threshold" error.

  1. May I know whether subfolder items have been counted towards this threshold now?
  2. Any easy workaround?

Thank you.

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2 Answers 2

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  1. The number of items in a folder needs to be less or equal to the list view threshold.
    If a list/library has 4000 items and a folder with 3000 items, both the folder view and the root folder view will work for a list view threshold of 5000. However, if the folder or root folder grows to have more than 5000 items, it will stop displaying items in the default view.

  2. The easiest and quickest solution is to change the list view threshold for the period you migrate the site, then change it back to default. To do this follow the steps:

    • go to your SP2013 Farm's Central Administration
    • go to the "Manage Web Applications" under the "Application Management" section
    • select the "Web Application" where you migrate the site
    • click the "General Settings" dropdown and select "Resources Throttling"
    • change the "List View Threshold" to 12000 if your library has 11000 pages
    • migrate your site from SP2010 to SP2013
    • change the "List View Threshold" back to 5000.


SharePoint 2013 works the same as 2010 in terms of list view threshold: you can use folders and/or views filtered on indexed columns to access items in a list/library with more than 5000 of items.

When you try to add/delete an entire list/library that has more than 5000 items, then the operation fails. The solutions here are:

  • see what I've said at point 2. above
  • enable the "Daily Time Window for Large Queries" option located in the same place as the "List View Threshold". This enables you to get around the "List View Threshold" during the time window you set, which could be sometime at 23:00 when nobody accesses SharePoint, for example. You can migrate your site during that time window.
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    Why everyone say items within subfolder not count towards list view threshold but it is counted in my environment? Are there two types of folders?
    – Mark L
    Commented Sep 12, 2014 at 3:52
  • Right, there is probably some kind of misunderstanding here. If you have a folder whose number of items is larger than the list view threshold, then the items in that folder cannot be displayed in the AllItems view of that folder. What is not counted towards the list view threshold is the sum of the items inside a folder and the items that are "siblings" of that folder. For example, a list that has 4000 items and a folder in the default view, where the folder has itself 3000 items, will work properly as the 3000 items in the folder don't sum up to the 4000 items.
    – Mihail
    Commented Sep 12, 2014 at 13:49
  • In my test, I set the List view threshold to 2000. Then in a library with 170 items only, I create a subfolder and upload 2000 dummy files in subfolder. When I click the libray-> library settings. In the list information section the list view threshold count show up is [2174 items (list view threshold is 2000) The number of items in this list exceeds the list view threshold, which is 2000 items. Tasks that cause excessive server load (such as those involving all list items) are currently prohibited.]. I think this 2174 didn't related with which view I use.
    – Mark L
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 9:00
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    It seems I was right about the misunderstanding. The List view threshold message you see on your list settings page is correct because you REALLY have 2174 items in the list. That message shouldn't scare you as you can have 5000000 items in the list and the threshold to be only 5000. The List VIEW Threshold is there to limit the amount of items you query from the database at once and it applies to VIEWS. So as long as you can see all your items by splitting them in different folders and filtered views, you shouldn't be worried about TOTAL number of items you have in the list.
    – Mihail
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 13:31
  • Thanks. I think I have better understand now. But I still wonder why on SP2013 a query web part will throw the over threshold error while no error on SP2010. The threshold limit, folder structure, no. of items/folders are exactly the same. No change on the query logic. I suspect SP2013 have different way to handle folder
    – Mark L
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 15:46
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No folder's item not count towards the list view threshold.

Could you please check how many items return in the current view?

Workaround for this kind of situation,

Please use the index column and filter in your views.

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  • Why everyone say items within subfolder not count towards list view threshold but it is counted in my environment? On the "library setting" the counter shows it is counted.
    – Mark L
    Commented Sep 12, 2014 at 3:48
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    by the way I have built index but it doesn't help. "exceeds the list view threshold" error still show
    – Mark L
    Commented Sep 12, 2014 at 3:52

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