Unlike on-premises i can not save a team sub-site as template when its root site have the Publishing features enabled

Question

I have the following inside my SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-premises.

1. Inside the source on-premises, I have a team site collection named PM where I enable the publishing features on the site collection and site level.
2. Under PM site collection, I created a new team subsite named "Projects", where I kept the publishing site feature disabled.
3. Then under the "Projects" team sub-site, I created a subsite named "Test" of type team site and I created many custom lists inside it. Then, I saved the Test subsite as a template.
4. Then under the "Projects" team site, I created many subsites based on the "Test" site template.
5. Now, I migrated the "PM" site collection using a third party tool to Office 365, where the PM and its subsites were migrated correctly.

But, I have noted that on the migrated subsites, the "Save site as template" option will be missing inside the "Projects" subsite and its subsites. While on the source On-premises's subsites, the "Save site as template" will be available for these subsites since these subsites themselves do not have the Publishing site feature enabled.

Now, to eliminate the possibility that the migration tool caused this problem, I created a brand new site collection inside my office 365, with the exact same structure as my On-premises PM, and it seems, in Office 365, we can not save a subsite as template if its parent root site have the Publishing features enabled...

Is there a way to fix this problem as I need to save the "Test" subsite as template and create new subsites based on this template inside my SharePoint Online sites..

So, can anyone advice on this please?

Side note: I have already enabled custom scripting inside my Office 365, and if I create a new team site collection, and I do not enable the publishing features, then the save site as template option will be presented.

Thanks.

Answer 1

By default, if you enabled the SharePoint publishing feature in root site, then there is no “save the site as template” option in site settings.

There is a workaround.

You could save the site as template in the site which is enabled SharePoint publishing feature the by accessing the URL below.

https://yourtenantname.sharepoint.com/sites/rootsite/subsite/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx

And make sure you do not activate the “SharePoint Server Publishing” feature in manage site feature in the subsite.

If you activate the “SharePoint Server Publishing” feature in the subsite, you will receive the message” The "Save site as template" action is not supported on this site.” when saving the site as template by the URL above.