At some point or another you may need to change the name of a SharePoint document library. This is a pretty straightforward change that can be done quickly using SharePoint's web user interface (UI). But what if you need to change a document library's URL?
Although you can change the URL of a site within a site collection using the SharePoint web UI, there isn't an interface to peform a similar action on a document library or list. So how do you accomplish this type of change?
One way is to create a new document library with the URL you want and then move the content from the original document library to the new document library. Although, this is a fine solution you should be aware of some of the ramifications of doing this:
1. You will lose any metadata in the copy/paste process
2. Your documents will show a "Modified By" equal to the user performing the relocation of files
3. Your document library's item counts *may* be off.
Actually, the main reason for this post, is to highlight number 3. This is a behavior I had not noticed before until recently. Basically, it looks as though performing a copy/paste of all content from one document library to another results in the target document library counting everything but the folders. The target document library item count was off by the exact number of folders used in the hierarchy that was moved.
All that said, the quickest way to rename a document library's URL is to use SharePoint Designer. Simply highlight the document library and click rename to change the document library's URL. This will retain the metadata, document history and item counts.