Managing list and library settings

List and library settings are managed through the classic SharePoint experience. Common settings for both and key differences of usage in the modern SharePoint experience are gone through in this section. On lists, settings are accessed from the Settings menu by selecting List settings. On libraries, the Library settings option opens a quick settings panel where the library’s name and description can be changed and a default sensitivity label for the library can be set. More library settings links will open a classic SharePoint library settings page to access more detailed configuration.

Common settings for both

The list name, description, and navigation settings allow changing the name of a list or library, adding a description, and adding a link to the list or library to site navigation.

On the Validation settings page, column values can be confirmed using validation formulas. If validation fails, a custom error message is shown to the user:

Figure 4.5 - List validation

• Validations are useful when, for example, a specific value difference between columns or a specific column value needs to be higher or lower than other columns, as in Figure 4.5, where the Start date must be higher than the Contract signed date. When validation fails, the list or library item cannot be saved. The user message should specify what is needed.
• Audience targeting of list items and documents can be enabled on the Audience targeting settings. Audience targeting enables list items and documents to be targeted to specific audiences. Targeting influences content aggregation, which can filter content based on the set target audience. For example, if the target audience is set to HR Team, only HR team members see content on aggregations.
• Form settings manage a SharePoint form or a custom form created with Power Apps used as default. On lists, there are still options for InfoPath available, but InfoPath itself is deprecated, and the end of life of the product is announced to be July 14, 2026. It’s not recommended anymore to use InfoPath forms.
• Permission settings for lists and libraries are similar and are covered in Chapter 3 of this book.
• The Apply label to items in this list or library setting enables adding a retention label automatically for items in this list. Retention labels can be used to manage the life cycle of list items and documents by setting up a label with specified settings. More details on retention labels are available at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/retention.

List-specific settings

The versioning settings control the following:

• Content approval of submitted list items. Approval requires the Approve permission, which is automatically included in the Site Owners permissions.
• Item Version History defines how many versions of an item are saved, the maximum being 50,000, and a new version is created every time the item is saved. Lists only have major versions, such as 1.0, 2.0, and so on.
• Draft Item Security defines who can see draft items. Choices are Any user who can read items, Only users who can edit items, and Only users who can approve items (and the author of the item).

The Advanced settings provide options to enable or disable various features of lists:

• Are content types enabled?
• Can users add attachments to list items?
• Can users add comments to list items?
• Are users able to create folders?
• Is the list and list items included in the search index and are non-default list views indexed?

The Reindex list button adds the list to the search indexing queue. This becomes handy when a list has major changes – for example, new site columns, which are required to be indexed as soon as possible.

With the Item-level permission, the behavior of read, create, and edit access can be controlled. For read access, options are Read all items or Read items created by the current user. For create and edit access, options are to create and edit all items in the list, edit items created by the user, or disable access by choosing None.

The Rating setting control can list items to be rated using either a star rating (1-5) or likes.

Library-specific settings

Versioning settings

On the versioning settings, the first setting is Content Approval. As with lists, libraries require the Approve permission, which is by default included in the Site Owners permissions. Libraries support two levels of versions, minor and major, which can be controlled with the Document Version History setting:

Figure 4.6 - Library versioning settings

When minor versioning is enabled, all saves increase the minor version number – for example, 1.3 to 1.4 – and the major version needs to be published separately from the context menu, which is opened from the three dots after the document name or second-clicking the document name:

Figure 4.7 - Publishing a document: major version

The Draft Item Security setting is similar in lists.

The Require Check Out setting in SharePoint allows for the implementation of check-out and check-in policies for documents. This means that when a document is locked to a specific user, it must be checked out before any edits can be made and then checked back in once editing is complete before others can edit it. Check-out policies are particularly useful when formal management of documents, traceability, or version auditing is needed. However, it’s important to note that enabling check-out policies disables the Co-authoring feature for documents in the document library.

Advanced settings

As with lists, library advanced settings enable content types, which are explained in Chapter 5 in more detail, and allow users to create folders in a library. The library-specific document template, used for all created Word documents, can be changed. As with lists, library availability in the search index can be controlled and request reindexing of the library.

With the Site Assets library setting, the library can be set as the default library for images and other files uploaded to pages. In the modern experience, there is already a library named Site Assets for that purpose, and it’s not recommended to add other libraries.

The Quick Property Editing setting can be used to disable editing library items using the information panel or in the grid view.

Column default value settings

Column default values for site columns can be set on libraries for a whole library or based on folder structure. This feature is nowadays rarely used, but it is still useful when metadata field default values differ on different folders or when centrally managed site columns are used, and default values are needed on the library.

Columns section on list and library settings

In the Columns section, all columns added to a list or library can be edited. Column settings are changed on the list or library level, and changes do not affect site columns:

Figure 4.8 - Columns section on settings

New columns can be created from the view. Newly created list columns are available only in the specific list or library. Existing site columns can also be added from the view. Nowadays, it’s more common to add new columns and change settings from the modern list or library view directly, but sometimes it’s still needed to change column settings using the list or library settings view.

Views section on list and library settings

The Views section displays all available views on a list or library:

Figure 4.9 - Views section on settings

Users can access a certain view, select visible list columns, and change view settings such as grouping, sorting, or filtering.

New views can be created from the Views section, but it’s recommended to use the modern experience to create new views. On recent modern views such as the Calendar or Board views, changes are made from the modern experience of lists.