How do I make a copy of a subsite?

Question

I am using Office 365 SharePoint online and have created a "template" subsite and would like to make a copy of the subsite including all structure and documents.

It seems the Microsoft has removed the "Save as Template" feature.

Answer 1

This issue most frequently occurs because the Community Sites Feature site feature, the SharePoint Server Publishing site feature, or the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure site collection feature is currently enabled or was previously enabled for the affected site.

SharePoint doesn’t support creating a template from a site where publishing or community features were enabled. This is because the publishing feature creates site elements that are not supported as part of a template, and these elements remain even when the feature is disabled. This also includes templates that were created through SharePoint Designer.

Save site as template" option isn't available in SharePoint Online in Office 365 or SharePoint Server 2013

=======Workaround====================================

Although this option is not supported by Microsoft it still works very well in some specific scenarios. To Save the site as a template you can follow this steps.

1. Open the site with SharePoint Designer
2. In the ribbon go to Site Options
3. Locate the option SaveSiteAsTemplateEnabled and modify the value to true
4. Since the site template is disabled in the Publishing sites the option Save Site as Template is not available in the Site Settings you will need to navigate to the page directly:

http://yourdomain.sharepoint.com/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx

5. Provide all the details and click OK after a couple of minutes you will have the WSP site template generated.
6. Open the Solution Gallery and click in the template name to download the wsp file containing the site template

Note: If you have apps downloaded from the store they could prevent you to save the site as a template if you are facing this scenario you will need to uninstall the apps first. .

for more details please check the link below.
Save publishing site as a template

Answer 2

No, The Save Site As Template still available in SharePoint Online for

• The Publishing Site.
• The Community Site.
• The Team Site with the SharePoint Server Publishing feature is enabled.

If your current site is matching one of the above, you still missing the Save Site As Template.

So Make sure that The Custom Script capabilities in Admin Center is enabled by doing the following:

• Go to SharePoint Admin Center > Settings > Custom Script > Check:
  • Allow users to run custom script on personal sites.
  • Allow users to run custom script on self-service created sites

Note: Changes to the above settings might take up 24 hours to take effect!

Check also Missing Save Site As Template in SharePoint

Answer 3

As per my experience, Both workaround will work for you but a site with publishing feature on will not be supported this operation.

If you have this requirement quite often then you need to think about to invest a 3rd party tool which will help you to move / copy a site collection / sub site. You can try ShareGate or metalogix or many others. You can try their trial version.

Of you can try the SharePoint PNP powerShell which required a little bit effort but it is do able.

Get-PnPProvisioningTemplate
Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate

SharePoint Online PowerShell : PnP Provisioning Process (Part 1)