List Title Column - Rename, Hide or Remove Completely

Question

I've been dealing with SharePoint for a short while now and looking at many questions new admins, devs and users have it seems a number of them are related to the Title column that comes standard with new lists.

• Some answers suggest renaming the title field in the definition.
• Some answers suggest renaming the title field per list
• Some answers suggest hiding the column.
• I have seen one answer suggesting taking off the Required and/or Deleting the column but SharePoint Online doesn't seem to allow this option.

So in SharePoint online you can remove the Required option and rename the field but you can't remove it and you can't change the Type.

Title is such a generic name that I find clients often asking "What should go into the title field?"

My question is this: What has become common practice with regards to the Title field? Rename it, hide it or delete it (the first 2 for SO)

I understand that simply renaming the column in the Edit Column view doesn't change the underlying name as can be seen in the URL in the Edit Column view, and this has implications when developing add-ins.

Answer 1

I thought I would list a few other reasons as to why the Item Title column is so important to SharePoint.

1. This is the main column that gives users the ability to open and work with the items in lists. Note that this column appears in the view settings 3 times as you can display the text, text (linked to item), and text (linked to item with edit menu).
2. This column also is integrated with Email Alerts as it shows up in the subject line, body and is included in a hyperlink back to the Item you were emailed.

It is in your best interest to make use of this column rename it as the main Title/Name text for your items. Sometimes the context of your content can help you think of useful names for this single line of text column.

If I have areas where there is no use for it I simply hide the column with content types and provide a useful default value that makes sense for that list.

Answer 2

The first option would be to rename. Remember, the title field is associated with the edit menu (the "..." menu), so completely removing that field removes the menu as well. The only times I hide it is when there simple is no need for a single line of text field as a major element for the list. If there is no need for a single line of text field, I simple modify the list content type and hide it.