Site Assets Library missing in SharePoint Online? Here is the fix!

Problem: Site Assets Library missing in SharePoint Online.

How to Create Site Assets Library in SharePoint Online?

The site assets library usually stores images, logos, audio-video, CSS, and JS files, and it gets created automatically when you start customizing your site. E.g., changing the site logo, uploading an image for the Hero web part, etc., will create the site assets library in SharePoint Online! In other words, Until you do these sorts of customization, you won’t find the “Site Assets” library in SharePoint Online sites, such as sites created with communication site templates.

In my case, We wanted to pre-create the site assets library as we provisioned a bunch of sites from a CSV file. If the Site Assets library is missing from your SharePoint Online site, it could be due to one of several reasons, like the Site Assets library was deleted, The Site Assets library was never created, etc. Here are the solutions to create a site assets library:

Option 1: Activate the “Video and Rich Media” Feature

Activate the video and rich media feature to create the site assets library in SharePoint Online:

  1. Go to your Site collection >> Click on “Site Information” >> Site Settings
  2. Click on “Site Collection Features” under Manage Site collection features
  3. Click on the “Activate” button next to the “Video and Rich media” feature.sharepoint online communication site assets library

This brings the Site Assets library and Site Pages to the SharePoint Online site. Other features can bring the site assets library like: the “Wiki Page Home Page” site feature, SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure, etc. You can use PowerShell to activate any of these features: Activate a feature for all SharePoint Online sites using PowerShell.

site assets missing sharepoint online

Option 2: Ensure Site Assets Library using PnP PowerShell

Instead of activating any of the features discussed above, You can programmatically ensure the site assets library using PowerShell.

#Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/portal"

#Connect to Tenant Admin Site
Connect-PnPOnline -url $SiteURL -Interactive

#Ensure Site Assets
$Web = Get-PnPWeb
$Web.Lists.EnsureSiteAssetsLibrary()
Invoke-PnPQuery

This script creates the site assets library in SharePoint Online if not created already.

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - Information Technology Expert with Two-decades of hands-on experience, specializing in SharePoint, PowerShell, Microsoft 365, and related products. He has held various positions including SharePoint Architect, Administrator, Developer and consultant, has helped many organizations to implement and optimize SharePoint solutions. Known for his deep technical expertise, He's passionate about sharing the knowledge and insights to help others, through the real-world articles!

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