SharePoint site best practices: structure, permissions and limits

A SharePoint site stays useful when it has a clear purpose, a named owner, a flat structure and access managed through groups. Most problems we are asked to fix come from skipping one of those four, not from the product itself.

Choose the right type of site

SharePoint Online has three building blocks, and picking the right one first avoids rework later.

• Team site: for a group that works together on files and tasks. It is usually connected to a Microsoft 365 group and a Teams team.
• Communication site: for publishing to a wide audience, such as news, policies or a department page. Few people edit it and many read it.
• Hub site: a way to connect related sites so they share navigation, branding and search. A hub site is not a container. It links sites that already exist.

Keep the structure flat

Older SharePoint set-ups nested sites inside sites. In SharePoint Online the better pattern is a flat list of sites, grouped by hubs. Each site has its own permissions, storage and lifecycle, so you can archive or hand over one site without touching the others.

• Create a new site when the audience, the permissions or the lifecycle is different. Create a new library or page when they are the same.
• Group sites by department, project type or region using hub sites, and keep the hub navigation short.
• Use one naming pattern, for example department or project first, then a short description, and write it down.

Manage permissions through groups

Permissions are where intranets quietly go wrong. Every time someone shares a single file or breaks inheritance on a folder, the site gets harder to explain and audit.

1. Use the three standard groups of each site (owners, members, visitors) and put people in them through Microsoft 365 or security groups.
2. Keep unique permissions on folders and files rare. When you need them, record why.
3. Name at least two owners per site so that one person leaving does not orphan it.
4. Review who has access every six months, and always before you switch on an AI assistant such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, because it can surface anything a person is allowed to open.

Use metadata, not deep folders

Folders force every file into one place. Metadata lets the same file be found by type, department, project, client or date. Add a few columns to a library (document type, owner, status, review date), turn on filtering in the view, and keep folders to one level for broad areas such as years or regions.

Content types help when different kinds of document need different columns, for example a contract and a policy. Define them once at site collection or hub level so every site uses the same fields.

Know the limits that matter

SharePoint Online is generous, but a few limits shape how you design a library. These figures come from Microsoft's published limits at the time of writing, so check the current documentation before you plan a large migration.

• Items per list or library: up to 30 million. Large libraries need indexed columns so views stay fast.
• List view threshold: 5,000 items. A view that filters or sorts on a column that is not indexed can fail above this size. Index the columns you filter on.
• File size: up to 250 GB per file.
• Path length: about 400 characters for the full address of a file. Long folder names in deep folders are the usual cause of sync and migration errors.

Plan for mistakes and recovery

Deleted items go to the site recycle bin, then to a second-stage bin, and are kept for 93 days in total before they are removed. A library can also be restored to an earlier point in time, up to 30 days back, which helps after a bulk delete or an overwrite. Versioning keeps earlier copies of a file, so decide how many versions to keep for large libraries.

None of this replaces a backup policy for regulated content. If you need longer retention, use retention policies in Microsoft Purview or a separate backup service.

Do not use SharePoint as a plain file share

Moving a shared drive into SharePoint unchanged gives you the same mess in a new place. Use the move to clean up: archive what nobody opens, rename what nobody can find, and add the few columns that make search work. Our guide to moving a file server to SharePoint Online walks through it, and the SharePoint migration planning guide covers the full plan.

Five tips for pages people read

1. Put the one thing a visitor came to do at the top of the page.
2. Use modern pages and the standard web parts. They adapt to phones and to the Teams app without extra work.
3. Keep navigation short and built from tasks, not department names.
4. Use one brand look through the site theme and hub, not page by page.
5. Ask readers what is missing, and fix the top three things each quarter.

For layout ideas, see our SharePoint design ideas. If you are planning an intranet, start with the intranet planning guide.

Related: SharePoint Online vs SharePoint on-premises, SharePoint consulting and SharePoint development.