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The effects of patch size and isolation on metapopulation dynamics have received wide empirical support and theoretical formalization. By contrast, the effects of patch quality seem largely underinvestigated, partly due to technical difficulties in properly assessing quality. Here we combine habitat‐quality modeling with four years of demographic monitoring in a metapopulation of greater white‐toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to investigate the role of patch quality on metapopulation processes. Together, local patch quality and connectivity significantly enhanced local population sizes and occupancy rates (R² = 14% and 19%, respectively). Accounting for the quality of patches connected to the focal one and acting as potential sources improved slightly the model explanatory power for local population sizes, pointing to significant source–sink dynamics. Local habitat quality, in interaction with connectivity, also …