SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

by | MS SharePoint

SharePoint Versioning for Office files is easy because we can make edits to them through desktop app or online, and we can edit them at the same time. However, editing a file in a SharePoint document library at the same time is only available for certain files. We can only do that for Office product files like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other MS Office product files.

We can’t edit non-office files in SharePoint at the same time. However, just like with MS Office files, we can still make use of the SharePoint versioning to audit and track the changes on those files

Uploading A Non-Office File For SharePoint Versioning

First, let’s create a folder named Videos.

SharePoint Versioning

Inside the Videos folder, let’s upload a video file.

SharePoint Versioning

For this example, we’ve created two video samples. Let’s upload the Car Video 1st Draft. Select it then click the Open button.

SharePoint Versioning

Another cool thing about SharePoint is that it has its own built-in video player. Let’s click on the video file that we’ve uploaded.

SharePoint Versioning

It’ll then open up the video. This sample video that we’ve uploaded is just a 1-second clip.

We can do a few things with this such as downloading, sharing, setting the quality of the video, and many others.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

Let’s now close this video.

Modifying A Non-Office File In SharePoint

For instance, someone else downloads the video and makes a few edits to it. An old way to update this file is by naming that second video as Car Video 2nd draft, 3rd draft, and so on and so forth. This can be very inconvenient and annoying. What we can do instead is to rename this file.  To do that, click the ellipsis and click Rename.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

Let’s name this file as “Car Video” and click the Rename button. We’re renaming this file because we don’t need to specify this as 1st draft or 2nd draft every time we need to make some changes.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

What we can do now is to upload a new file which is the edited file. So, let’s click Upload and choose Files.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

Instead of uploading an updated video with a different file name, let’s rename this updated video with the same name as the file name from SharePoint. So, let’s rename this second video as “Car Video”. With this, we’re telling SharePoint that we’re not adding in a different file. Instead, we’re adding in an updated version of the file.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

Let’s click the Open button.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

It’ll then give us an error saying that the name of the file we’re uploading already exists. It’ll give us an option to keep them both or to replace the existing file. What we want to do is to replace the existing file. Therefore, let’s click the Replace button. 

We can check if the file is updated by opening it up again.

Then, we’ll see that it’s now a 3-seconds long video. Earlier, we only had a 1-second video clip.

Versioning Non-Office Files In SharePoint

Now, let’s open the Version history of this file.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

As we can see, the updates that we’ve made are listed here as well. The latest version or the version 3 is the file that we’ve recently uploaded which is the 3-seconds long video. The version 2 is the 1-second long video. We can also see that these videos have different file sizes.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

If we want to get the previous version (the 1-second clip) of the video, we can just click the version 2.

SharePoint Versioning For Non-Office Files

Then, it’ll be automatically downloaded on our computer.

***** Related Links *****
Check Out And Check In SharePoint Files
Versioning In SharePoint Documents
SharePoint Tutorial: Creating A New Site

Conclusion

And that’s how we can use the SharePoint versioning feature for non-office files. In SharePoint, versioning allows users to record changes made to documents and the names of the users who made those changes. In the document library, SharePoint always displays the most recent version of the file which makes it easier to tell which iteration is the most up-to-date.

We can also download all the different versions of our files again even though we’re replacing them.  We can do this versioning feature for videos, images, DLL files, code files, and many more. 

All the best,

Henry

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