SharePoint 2013 – Restoring the 2010 Navigate Up Crumb Trail Button

 

2007

SharePoint 2007 had the nice complete "bread crumb trail" across the top of every page:

   

2010

SharePoint 2010 removed those and gave us a very limited, library relative, crumb trail which has gaps if too long:

   

As a compromise, 2010 gave us a little button / dropdown called Navigate up to make up for the missing crumb trail:

 

2013

What Microsoft giveth, Microsoft takes away. No more crumb trails in 2013!  I think 2013 users are supposed to only "Follow" or search for sites. :-)

Actually… the Navigate up button is still there, but it's been hidden! It's just between the site logo and the Top Link Bar. All you need to do is make two quick changes to your master page, and the crumb trail is back!

In the example below I'm in a subsite named Sales Training and I've drilled down into a library with a bunch of folders looking for the 2014 schedules. In two clicks I can quickly jump up to a higher level folder, library or site.

Site with the restored Navigate Up button:

   

 

Get back the crumb trail!

The steps:

1. Open your site in SharePoint Designer 2013.
2. In the left panel click Master Pages.
3. Click your master page (probably Seattle.Master for a typical Team Site).
4. Click Edit File.
5. Search for "breadcrumbdropdown".
   
   (If you don't find it, you may be working with a customized or branded master page.)
6. Make two edits…
1. In the line above change display:none to display:inline
2. Two lines down change Visible="false" to Visible="true"
7. Save the master page, and if prompted, click Yes.
8. Return to your site and refresh the page!

 

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