What does "locked for Shared Use" mean, exactly?

Anonymous
2018-01-25T16:34:28+00:00

I've got a file in a SharePoint library that I'm trying to move to a new folder in the same library. But no matter how I try to move it, I get a message that "this file is locked for shared use," by me. But I didn't do anything to lock the file.

How did it get locked, and more importantly, how do I unlock it? Properties, Details, and similar have been unhelpful, and the old turn it off and turn it on again didn't work either.

Microsoft 365 and Office | SharePoint | For business | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-08T19:19:30+00:00

    I was finally able to rename my document that I owned and I never locked by going to SharePoint and editing it there. I could not rename in OneDrive or Teams.

    Hope this helps at least one person.

    :)

    Eric

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-07-17T16:59:25+00:00

    I can't believe this has existed since the early days. Last project, I struggled with the 5K list view threshold on a daily basis. Now, I'm dealing with this lock issue constantly. Oh MS, when will you listen to your admins and users?

    To resolve this, I tried these steps to no avail:

    • Toggling Check in Check out
    • Toggling Content Approval
    • Restarting Browser / Machine
    • Powershell (No SPO Cmdlet exists, only on-prem)
    • Clearing Cache
    • Syncing OneDrive, Stopping syncing
    • Deleting, renaming, copying, moving the document
    • Opening in the client desktop version to try to force checkout

    I cannot override this and as an admin, this is painful and unacceptable from a client perspective.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-06-19T12:09:34+00:00

    Even downloading a copy of the file and replacing it doesn't work. This is such a random behaviour.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-05-15T22:28:56+00:00

    This issue is still happening and no real solution to the issue other than waiting or ending all tasks.  The file isn't open by user nor anyone else and still the error shows up. 

    "is locked for share use by"

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-06-19T22:29:57+00:00

    Yes there's obviously a deeply ingrained bug in Msft's code - but they refuse to admit it.

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