Replace in SharePoint

Find and replace across live sites and libraries

When a domain changes, a file server is renamed, or a company is rebranded, thousands of documents quietly contain the old value. This finds them across the sites you choose and rewrites them. Preview lists every change before any of it is applied.

What it does

• Every occurrence that would change, and where inside the file or item it sits, before anything is written.
• Which files could not be searched, including password-protected ones, so the count is honest.
• What was actually written once the run finishes, and what was skipped because it changed after the search.

How it runs

1. Sign in and pick a scope. Sites, libraries and folders.
2. Write the rules. An ordered list of find-and-replace pairs. Order matters, and the preview shows the effect of the whole set rather than one rule at a time.
3. Preview. Non-destructive. It uses the same engine as the apply step, but its matches are not kept: Apply searches again and writes what it finds then.
4. Apply. Before each write the file or item is checked against what the search read; one that changed in between is skipped and reported, never overwritten. Where the library keeps versions, the previous content becomes a version. Tick Backup changed files to also save each matched file's original content to a folder on this computer; list columns and page text are not backed up. Cancel offers Finish the current item, Stop now, or Keep running. Nothing is left half-written: an item is either done or not started.

How it works

A run walks each ticked location and gathers what it will search: Word, Excel and PowerPoint files (including older .xls workbooks) and text files such as .txt, .html, .aspx and .css in libraries; classic pages; the text and title of modern pages; and text columns on list items. Other files, PDFs included, are not opened. A modern page is searched in its page content, never its .aspx file, and anything covered by two ticked areas is searched once. Only visible, writable single and multi-line text columns are searched; file names, content types, people, dates, hyperlinks and calculated or choice columns are never touched. A location, list or file that cannot be read is named in the report as not searched, and the rest carries on.

Rules run in order, each on the result of the one before, and match literal text, a wildcard pattern or a regular expression, ignoring case unless you say otherwise. In Office files a phrase split across differently formatted pieces of text is still found; the replacement takes the formatting of the first matched character, the rest of the file is left as it was, and link addresses in the document are rewritten too. In a modern page only the text inside the page content changes, never its structure, and a page whose content cannot be read is reported rather than written.

Preview runs the same steps and writes nothing. Its matches are not kept: Apply searches the locations again and writes what it finds then, which can differ if content changed in between. A file is written back whole, in place, only when a rule actually changed it, so SharePoint keeps the previous content as a version where the library keeps versions. Nothing is written blind: a file or item someone changed after it was searched is skipped and reported, and where that check cannot be made for a file, the write is refused rather than made.

A password-protected Word, Excel or PowerPoint file is opened with the passwords from your imported worksheet, the ones for that file first, then edited and saved with the same password. A file no password opens is reported, and one that cannot be safely protected again is previewed but not written. A failed file is listed with its reason and the run carries on; a lost sign-in or a stop ends the run, and the files already written are still reported.

With Backup changed files ticked, each matched file's original content is also saved to a folder you choose on this computer, in folders that follow the site's paths. Every run, preview or apply, is recorded in Find & Replace History with its report and kept in Report History.

What you need

• Write access to the libraries in scope.
• Passwords for any protected files you want included. Find password-protected files produces the worksheet you fill in and bring back here.

What it will not do

• Rules apply in order, and a later rule can act on what an earlier one produced. That is deliberate, and it is why the preview shows the combined result.
• Password-protected documents are skipped unless you have supplied their passwords.
• Searching and rewriting inside documents means opening them, so a wide scope takes real time.
• Run the report-only mode first, from the Reports menu, if you want the list without any risk of writing.

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