Finally Microsoft is releasing much anticipated feature in SharePoint online – Collapsible sections on modern pages. This new feature will allow users to create rich, information-dense SharePoint pages with sections that can expand and collapse. As part of this release, Microsoft will enable the page authors to configure sections within the modern SharePoint page to be able to expand, collapse and set the default page-load state for the section.
Users will have the ability to show collapsible page sections in an accordion view (collapsed or expanded) or as tabs (future release). The accordion view will be collapsed by default, but can be set to show expanded. This feature will help users to quickly navigate between the page sections and consume the page content more easily.
Release Timeline
Microsoft will begin rolling out this feature to Targeted release tenants (selected users and organization) in early July (complete) and expect to be complete for Standard release in late September (previously late July).
How this will affect your organization
This feature will give page authors new ways to build rich and interesting SharePoint pages with collapsible sections – accordion or tabs.
When you will edit a section on modern page, you will see collapsible group options like below:
Note: Tabs layout will be rolled out with future releases.
Set Expand/Collapse icon alignment & show divider line between sections
Starting from September 2021, you have two more settings on Edit section panel as shown below:
- You can set Expand/Collapse icon alignment to Left or Right
- You can show divider line between two sections
Anchor links on collapsible section heading
On SharePoint online modern pages, anchor links are automatically added to H1, H2, and H3 headings when you add those in Text web part. Similar anchor links are now available on collapsible section headings as shown in below image. When you hover over collapsible section heading, you will see a link symbol. Clicking this link will give you the full URL of modern page, including the anchor in browser URL bar. You can also right-click on the link to copy it.
What you need to do to prepare
You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.
Learn More
Update from Microsoft
We have updated the rollout timeline. While in Targeted Release we received valuable feedback around the behavior of anchor links when used in collapsible sections as well as some formatting issues experienced by users of right-to-left languages. We feel that both of these issues are important for us to address prior to making the feature generally available. We are actively addressing these issues now and expect the solution to reach General Availability with all fixes in place by the end of September 2021. Thank you for your patience.
Updated September 30, 2021: As shared previously, the new collapsible Sections was deployed to 100% of Targeted Release customers. We held the solution at the Targeted Release phase while we addressed some issues that were reported with the solution. The issues have now been addressed and we will be resuming the global rollout to all customers. It is now our expectation that we’ll complete the rollout of the feature by the end of October 2021. Thank you for your patience.
Ganesh Sanap Blogs 
Is there an option to disable this across the tenant? IMO collapsing content and tabs is a far less effective way of getting readers to content as opposed to a decent (preferably floating, auto-generated) table of contents.
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Currently, there is no communication from Microsoft about disabling this feature.
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Hey Ganesh,
This idea could be useful for pages that have a lot of content on it for one reason or another. I do think it would be appropriate to accommodate the use of a browsers ‘find in page’ functionality and automatically expand a section that might house text results that were found as a result of searching the page.
Just a thought.
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Agree with you Bryce. This will be a great addition to the feature & easy to navigate for end users!
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I agree! That would be great!
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It is a SUPER idea! Thank you for sharing… Positive thoughts!
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You’re welcome David. Thanks for reading my blog post!
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Our pages are text heavy and this will help with our off site users on smaller devices. Looking forward to using it and thanks for the tip to update training documents.
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You’re welcome Monica!
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Fingers crossed this will be applicable to the Teams templates…
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Do you mean SharePoint team sites? Yes, it will be available for team sites as well.
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I don’t see the tabs ability yet. Would that functionality come out later?
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Yes Julie, currently only accordion is available & tabs functionality will be released with later updates.
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thank you
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I still don’t see the accordion option with our 365 sharepoint.com. I’m based in Germany. When will it be released for everyone?
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Same with you Sanato, I’m in Canada
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Sanato/Jennifer,
Microsoft already started rolling out this feature to SP online tenants. To get such features earlier, you might want to setup targeted release for your tenant: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/manage/release-options-in-office-365
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Its now almost mid October. Anyone else not have this rolled out to their tenant?
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Are you using Standard or Targeted release tenant? It has been rolled out to my targeted release tenant already.
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What timing! This is exactly the topic that I was searching but I think my needs may be more than what is going to be rolled out. For our needs we are trying to reduce a large document library. Does the selection of 2 columns imply only 2 collapsible areas? If not, where do you define the amount or what is the process to add more layers. Also, the content in the collapsed area just static text or images or can they be document library by grouping?
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Hi Thomas, If you want to define multiple collapsible sections, you have to add multiple “sections” on a page (it’s not related to 2 or 3 columns inside a section). Also, you can add any web part (including document library web part) inside collapsible section on modern page.
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Hi when this function will be released to standard tenants
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As per my knowledge, it has been released to all tenants now. Can you check again & see if it shows up for you?
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This is great! I am looking to implement this features, but it still does not appear to be an option in my organization. Is there any update to the rollout?
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Hi Sam, it seems like this feature is still not rolled out to all standard release tenants. If you want to get such features earlier, you might want to setup targeted release for your tenant else you have wait until standard release (GA): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/manage/release-options-in-office-365
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Hi, I was delighted to use them but overnight the font size has increased dramatically. Can it be reduced again as the titles are unnecessarily large.
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I have observed this change as well & unfortunately there are no settings to control font size from section settings.
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Agree the increased size was a bad idea – without allowing choice.
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I have observed this change as well & unfortunately there are no settings to control font size from section settings.
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Oh no! What’s happened to the headings on SharePoint collapsible sections? From last week, they have become incredibly large and the arrow is forced onto a separate row. No ability to control the font size. I won’t be using them if this is a permanent change, because they are clunky and ugly.
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I have observed font change as well & unfortunately there are no settings to control font size from section settings. But, arrow is on same line as headings for me. You can try raising support ticket with Microsoft & suggest to make it as it was before. Hope Microsoft will fix this in next updates.
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Agree, Christie G. It’s ruined the visual hierarchy as the accordions are as big as the Heading 1 font. My arrow is also above the title so it’s taken twice the real estate on the page 😦
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Good addition. But looks like there’s a bug when linking to a heading within a (Collapsed) Collapsible section from another Collapsible section (Or an anchor link from another page).
Sometimes the section will open and jump to the heading as expected within, other times the Collapsible section may open but not at the heading being linked to.
Anyone else experience this?
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I am seeing the same behavior on my tenant as well. When user clicks link to heading inside collapsed section from navigation/other page, user was redirected to the start of expanded section & not to the heading inside section.
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Thanks for verifying Ganesh. I wonder if it’s on their radar to address or just something we’ll have to live with 😔
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I hope Microsoft resolves this issue in upcoming releases. I will recommend you to raise a support ticket with Microsoft & report the issues you are facing: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business-video/get-help-support?view=o365-worldwide#online-support
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Is anyone having issues with editing the text on the collapsible section heading? It worked until yesterday for our organisation. Could the fix for copying the link anchor have affected the ability to edit the text?
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Is there a known issue with editing the collapsible section title? I can’t edit the text anymore and when I try to create a new one, I don’t have the option to add a title.
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I am able to reproduce this issue at my end. Not able to change the section title of existing sections as well as not able to add title to newly created collapsible sections. I will recommend to raise a support ticket with Microsoft.
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I have the same issue, tried everything. The display name textbox is gone.
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I am now able to update the section title from section settings/property pane.
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SharePoint document library with “Tile view” and group by single line of text column doesn’t provide accordion to expand or collapse although we can see that in “List view”. Any thoughts how can we bring accordion in group by tile view?
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SharePoint does not supporting grouping in tile/gallery view. Check if you can create your own grouping using view formatting: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/view-formatting
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Does anyone know of a way to change the font size of the section display name?
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There are no SharePoint default settings available to change the font size of the section display name.
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Ok, Thank you Ganesh!
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Ganesh, in your post above you say the Tabs feature “will be rolled out with future releases.” Any idea how far in the future this might be? I’ve been looking forward to this release but I was hoping both collapsible sections and tabs would be available at the same time.
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Unfortunately no ETA on tabs feature from Microsoft.
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Please please please pass along the feedback that the size of the collapsible section heading should be customizable (H1, H2, H3).
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Agreed 100%. It would also be nice if you could add collapsible sections WITHIN a tab.
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Yes, they look huuuge, in a bad way
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Anybody know if MSFT is already adding the support to reduce the font size and what’s the ETA? TIA
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There are no SharePoint default settings available to change the font size of the section display name and unfortunately there are no announcements or ETA from Microsoft to support these settings.
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This feature is not showing up in my new on-prem modern site. Any ideas why this could be? I also noticed when using quick links or anything with an image, the options for “Stock Images” and “OneDrive” are also missing. Is it possible when the site was created by the admin he missed a feature or did something wrong?
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Which site template are you using, team or communication site? How site was created, using SharePoint UI, programmatically or migration tool?
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Hey Ganesh, I was wondering if you have heard anything further about tabs as a way of laying out a collapsible group of content? It’s been a while and it still makes sense as a good way of containing a lot of content on one page.
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I’m still looking for this functionality, too. Collapsible sections aren’t always the best way to lay out content.
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Me too. I’ve been told that screen readers can’t access if the section is collapsed so all our pages have them expanded by default and then users can collapse them as they move down the page. That somewhat defeats the purpose of using the sections. As an alternative, I’m now creating long pages with ‘anchors’ at the top of the page that navigate to different sections in the very long page. I work for a government agency and we must ensure accessibility of our content. I love that we have to do that, I just wish there was an alternative so screenreaders can access all content on a page, not just what is ‘visible’.
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