When I first started on SharePoint and I realized I couldn’t move files by dragging them, I panicked a little bit. My first instinct was to save the file to my desktop and then upload it again to the new folder. Talk about a gigantic waste of time! In case there are others out there who panicked, let me show you the easy way to move documents to a new location in SharePoint.

1. In a document library, hover the mouse pointer over the document you want to move. A check box appears on the left and a list arrow on the right. You can click the list arrow and select Send To; or you can select the check box and then on the Documents contextual tab, in the Copies group, click the Send To button.
2. Select Other Location.
3. The Copy dialog box appears. Type the destination or paste the URL, and then click the (Click here to test) link to make sure you’re sending the document to the right place.
4. Next you can modify the document settings. You can rename the document or add “_copy” to the end of the file name, select whether to prompt the author to send updates when the document is checked in, and decide whether to create an alert when changes are made to the source document.
5. Click OK. You’ll be prompted to double-check your information; if it looks correct, click OK again.
6. When the copying is complete, click Done.

Now you’ll be able to see the document in its original spot, and you’ll see a copy in the new location as well. Once you send the document copy to another location, it becomes a separate document; that is, changes to it do not affect the original document.

Because you can receive alerts when changes are made to the source document, you can know if and when you need to update all versions. If you don’t want different versions hanging around, just delete the document in the original location.