How-to: Promote a Sub-Site to a Top-Site in SharePoint 2013

 Sep 13, 2016

If you have a sub-site in SharePoint 2013 that you would like to disjoint from its site collection and put it right at the top of a new site collection, here are the steps to follow:

  1. Create a template out of you sub-site. Either with or without content.

  2. Go to Site Templates gallery in the top site and click on the template name to download it. Remember where it is downloaded to.

  3. Go to the Central Administration web page and in there, click on Application Management > Create site collections.

  4. Fill in the form the way you should, except that in the Template selection section click on the Custom tab and select the only option there. This will cause to “Create an empty site and pick a template for the site at a later time“.

  5. Click on OK to create your new site collection.

  6. In the page that follows click on the link to your new site collection. It opens a new tab in which it asks you to select a template (make sure you don’t close the previous tab because you are going to click on the same link again later).

  7. In the new tab click on the link Solutions Gallery and then from the tab Solutions select Upload Solution to upload the file you downloaded in step 2. Don’t forget to activate it from the tab.

  8. Now go back to the tab in step 6 and click on the link to your site collection again. This time you should get new tab in the Site Templates called Custom. Select Custom tab and your site template should be there. Select it and click on OK.

  9. In the next page of course you get to define your three main Groups (Visitors, Members and Owners). Although it shows you to use existing group but my advice to you is define your own.

You should now have a new top-site in a new site collection which is the exact replica of your sub-site! Go ahead and delete your sub-site if you want to.

For more information, take a look at New Horizons' SharePoint training courses.

Cyrus Mohseni.

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About the Author:

Cyrus Mohseni  

Having worked within the education and training industry for over 15 years as well as the IT industry for 10 years, Cyrus brings to New Horizons a wealth of experience and skill. Throughout his career he has been involved in the development and facilitation of numerous training programs aimed at providing individuals with the skills they require to achieve formal qualification status. Cyrus is a uniquely capable trainer who possesses the ability to connect with students at all levels of skill and experience.

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