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In SharePoint online, I have a document library that has one folder for each brand and a number of sub-folders under each of the "brand folder". How do I modify the metadata for all files in all the sub-folders of a particular brand folder?

Example: I have a column [Product status](It is a choice column with launched / developing) for this library, Can change every file in Brand A 's sub-folders to "launched" and change Brand B's to "developing"? I want to do it without the need to go to every single sub-folders to make this change. I tried the "no folder view", but that would give me files for both Brand A and Brand B.

Or put it in another way, how to isolate a specified directory in a library in no folder view?

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Appreciate your help!!

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  • Why would you want to exclude folders from the index? Indexed columns improve performance. Why would you want to limit performance improvements?
    – teylyn
    Jul 6, 2020 at 3:37
  • Or do you have a different interpretation of "index"? What are you trying to achieve? If you have folders for Brand A and Brand B, just create a view, then navigate to the folder.
    – teylyn
    Jul 6, 2020 at 3:38
  • I have a different interpretation of the index (I edited my question, hope it is clearer now).
    – VinC
    Jul 6, 2020 at 6:23

1 Answer 1

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Edit after clarification:

If the documents are already in the folders in the library and there are no values in the library columns for filtering, you will need to manually or programmatically set their metadata values.

For all new documents that are uploaded to the library, you can set up specific default metadata values for individual folders and their sub folders. To set this up, go to Library Settings > Column default value settings.

On that page you see a navigation tree on the left. Navigate to a folder, then click a column name and in the next screen define the column default value for the selected folder.

You may also want to take a look at document sets. These are like folders on steroids. Properties of the main folder can be inherited by the sub folders.

What you describe, though, sounds like the documents already exist in the folders and the metadata columns don't have the correct values, so you want to do bulk editing of metadata. SharePoint does not have any built-in tools to facilitate that, apart from the "Quick edit" and going through the folders manually.

There are 3rd party tools that allow you to download a list of document properties into an Excel file, edit the Excel file and then upload it again into the tool, which will then change the metadata values.

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  • Yes, I am OK to apply the column to the whole library, I just wanna see all file in one folder (including sub-folders) so that I can make the index all at once for all items in that particular folder.
    – VinC
    Jul 6, 2020 at 4:07
  • What do you mean with "make the index"??? SharePoint column index? Or do you want to make a list of files in a folder? That is not called an index.
    – teylyn
    Jul 6, 2020 at 4:17
  • Actually I meant adding metadata to all sub-folders. OR Put it in another way, how to isolate a specified directory in a library in no folder view?
    – VinC
    Jul 6, 2020 at 6:21
  • I edited my answer.
    – teylyn
    Jul 6, 2020 at 21:12
  • Thank you. Yes, my documents are already in the folder. For the 3rd party tool using Excel to manage the document properties, could you give some suggestions on that?
    – VinC
    Jul 7, 2020 at 2:25

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