Design Manager missing in SharePoint Online

Applicable to – SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, SharePoint Online.

Design Manager was introduced in SharePoint 2013 as an alternative to SharePoint Designer for the purpose of creating customized master pages. It has gained much popularity ever since and has been a part of the subsequent releases – SharePoint 2016 as well as SharePoint Online

This article explains how to activate the Design Manager in SharePoint Online. The steps are the same for SharePoint 2013 as well as SharePoint 2016.

The Design Manager is not activated by default when SharePoint sites are provisioned.

Follow these steps mentioned below to get it up and running in no time –

Step 1 – Activate the feature “SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure” present at the site collection level. This can be navigated as Settings ->Site Settings -> Site collection features (under Site Collection Administration) -> SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure -> Click on Activate

Step 2 –  Once the site collection feature has been activated in the above step, then navigate to the subsite, and activate the Site Feature – “SharePoint Server Publishing”. This can be navigated as –

Settings -> Site Settings -> Manage site features (under Site Actions) -> SharePoint Server Publishing -> Click on Activate

Step 3. After Step 1 and 2 have been completed, navigate back to the site. Click on settings, and you’ll find “Design Manager” added to the menu –

N.B. Many a time it happens that, the Design Manager isn’t available in the settings menu, even after the two required features have been activated. In that case, just deactivate both the features (site feature first, followed by site collection feature), and then follow the steps again. This will bring in “Design Manager” to the settings menu. This is a known bug of SharePoint.

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