Employee: “Can you please tell me the location of our SharePoint document library?”

IT: “Sure, its http://portal.mycompany.com/the%20company%20documents”

Employee: “Oh ya, I remember. I forgot about the weird %20’s in the URL. Can you do something about that?”

If you ever wondered about the mysterious %20 in your SharePoint site path, you are not alone. Users in your organization at this very moment are probably viewing a SharePoint page that contains a %20 in the URL. Unless you consider this a “feature”, there is a direct method for ensuring that %20 does not appear in any SharePoint URLs in the future.

First, understand that the %20 is not a bug in the SharePoint architecture but rather a key component of all things URL… the need to eliminate whitespace as a URL requires an uninterrupted path in order to retrieve the page or object it is looking for. Whitespace is supplemented with the %20 representation in order to provide this path.

In the case of SharePoint, this blank space is created when the initial library or list is created and cannot be changed. (Please see Creating a Clean “Internal Name” for SharePoint Columns for more about internal names)

The same rationale for site column creation is applied to libraries and lists:

1. During initial creation of a library or list, don’t put any spaces in the “Name”. Example: Name your document library “TheDocs” instead of “The Docs”. This will set the internal name and the URL to use TheDocs instead of The%20Docs.
2. Immediately after the library or list is created go into “Title, description and navigation” within the library or list and place the spaces in the “Name” field as desired. This sets the display name. Please note that while the display name be changed as needed, changing the display name will not change the URL. Once the internal name is set, it cannot be modified.

Example Document Library General Settings



3. Inform you users that the URL for the documents library is http://portal.mycompany/TheDocs, but it is still named The Docs within the site navigation.
4. Get used to being called “my hero”, “defeater of the %20 monster”, or whatever “Display Name” you deem appropriate for your actions.

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