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Term Store

The Term Store is SharePoint's central repository for Managed Metadata, the official terms your organization uses to tag and classify content, such as departments, regions, clients, or document types. Terms are organized into groups and term sets, managed at either the tenant level for global reuse or the site level for local needs, and applied by end users through Managed Metadata columns. Set up well, it keeps tagging consistent across every site instead of each library inventing its own values.
Related Features
Enterprise Keywords, Term Group, Term Set

Common Use Cases

  • Enterprise taxonomy management: define official terms for departments, regions, clients, or products
  • Standardized metadata: reuse the same terms across sites, lists, and libraries
  • Global consistency: prevent duplicate or conflicting metadata values
  • Search refinement: power consistent search refiners and filtering experiences
  • Records and compliance support: align metadata with retention and compliance requirements
  • Multi-language environments: support translated terms for global organizations

Benefits

  • Central source of truth: manage terms once and use them everywhere
  • Flexible scope: create terms globally (tenant) or locally (site) based on governance needs
  • Improved data quality: eliminates misspellings and free-text inconsistencies
  • Scalable information architecture: supports growth without redesigning metadata
  • Hierarchy and structure: organize terms into groups, term sets, and nested levels
  • Governance-ready: enables controlled changes and delegated ownership

How It Works

  • Three-level hierarchy: term groups contain term sets, and term sets contain terms that can nest up to seven levels deep
  • Two scopes: tenant-level terms are reusable on every site in the organization, while site-level term sets are scoped to the site where they were created
  • End users never open it: people apply terms through Managed Metadata columns on lists and libraries, not in the Term Store itself
  • Rename once, update everywhere: tagged content stores a pointer to the term rather than the text, so renaming a term updates everywhere it has been applied
  • Synonyms and translations: a user typing HR can resolve to the official Human Resources term, and labels can be maintained in multiple languages

Limits and Nuances

  • Scale limits: the Term Store holds up to 1 million total terms, 2 million term labels, 1,000 global term sets, and 1,000 global groups
  • Scope is sticky: tenant-level terms are reusable everywhere, while site-level term sets are locked to the site where they were created; choose deliberately
  • Delegated ownership: Term Store admins, group managers, and contributors maintain the taxonomy; end users only apply terms through columns
  • Submission policy matters: a closed term set lets only contributors add terms, while an open one lets users add new values while tagging
  • Renames cascade, deletes orphan: renaming a term updates every tagged item at once (coordinate the change), while deleting leaves orphaned values – deprecate instead to stop new tagging while keeping existing tags intact
  • Performance ceiling: keep no more than about 50 terms as defaults on a Managed Metadata column, Microsoft’s recommended ceiling for reliable performance
  • Design first: restructuring term sets after thousands of items are tagged is painful and risky, so plan the taxonomy before rollout
  • Not always needed: a simple Choice column is easier when values are few, stable, and only used in one list

Common Questions About the Term Store

What is the Term Store in SharePoint?

The Term Store is the central place where an organization’s official metadata vocabulary lives – the approved names for departments, locations, clients, products, or document types. Terms are organized into groups and term sets, then surfaced to users through Managed Metadata columns on lists and libraries. Managing terms once, centrally, keeps tagging consistent across every site instead of each library inventing its own values.

What is the difference between tenant-level and site-level term sets?

Tenant-level term sets are created in the SharePoint admin center and can be reused on any site in the organization – ideal for company-wide vocabularies like departments or regions. Site-level term sets are created from a site’s Term store management page and are only usable on that site – ideal for local lists of values that no other site needs. Scope is a governance decision, not just a technical one.

Who manages the Term Store?

Tenant-level taxonomy is maintained by SharePoint admins and anyone designated as a Term Store admin. Below that, each term group can have group managers and contributors, which lets you delegate a department’s term sets to the people who actually own that vocabulary. Regular users never edit the Term Store – they simply pick terms from Managed Metadata columns when tagging content.

When should I use a Managed Metadata column instead of a Choice column?

Use Managed Metadata when the same vocabulary needs to appear in multiple lists or sites, when values change over time, or when you want hierarchy, synonyms, or translations. A rename in the Term Store updates everywhere at once. Use a simple Choice column when the values are few, stable, and only matter in one list – the Term Store adds power, but also administrative overhead.

What happens if I rename or delete a term?

Renaming is safe and is one of the Term Store’s best features – every item tagged with the term updates automatically because content points to the term, not the text. Deleting is riskier: items already tagged keep an orphaned value that no longer resolves to an active term. The better practice is to deprecate a term, which blocks new tagging while preserving everything already tagged.

Is the Term Store worth setting up for a small organization?

Often yes, but selectively. Even small organizations benefit from a tenant-level term set for departments or office locations, since those values appear on nearly every intranet. Beyond that, add term sets only where consistent tagging genuinely pays off, such as document types for a policy library. When Greg, the SharePoint Maven behind LookBook 365, builds intranets, the Term Store is scoped to a handful of high-value vocabularies, not an enterprise taxonomy project.