SharePoint Storage Quota: Check Usage and Free Up Space

SharePoint storage for a Microsoft 365 tenant is 1 TB plus 10 GB for each licence you buy on most plans, and it is one shared pool for every site. To check it, open Active sites in the SharePoint admin center and read the storage bar at the top right. To free space, find the biggest sites, trim file versions, empty recycle bins and remove content you no longer need, and buy more capacity only if that is not enough.

Who this is for and what you will have at the end

This guide is for Microsoft 365 administrators who have received a storage warning, are close to the tenant limit, or want to plan before a migration adds terabytes of files to SharePoint.

At the end you will have:

• The tenant storage figure for your plan and a way to confirm it.
• A list of the largest sites, using the admin center or PowerShell.
• A ranked set of ways to free space, from safe to disruptive.
• The options for buying more capacity.

How SharePoint storage is calculated

Microsoft's SharePoint limits page gives these tenant totals:

Important details from the same page:

• The total is not unlimited. For example, a base of 1 TB and 100 users gives 2 TB.
• If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription and an Office 365 Extra File Storage add-on, the amounts are added. OneDrive standalone plans contribute 0.50 GB per licence to the tenant limit.
• The figure does not include the OneDrive created for each licensed user, which has its own quota.
• Storage is calculated in binary gigabytes, where 1 GB equals 2^30 bytes.
• The maximum for a single site collection is 25 TB.
• The Teams Essentials plan lists 10 GB of storage per user.
• Education tenants may have limited allocations.

By default, storage is a central pool from which all sites draw. You do not divide it up, and sites use what they need when they need it.

Step 1: Check tenant usage

1. Open the SharePoint admin center and go to Active sites. Sign in with an account that has SharePoint admin permissions.
2. At the top right, read the storage available and the total storage for the subscription.
3. If your organization uses Multi-Geo, point to the bar to see usage in the current geo and all others.

Microsoft notes that usage does not include changes made within the last 24 to 48 hours. If you have just deleted a large amount of content, wait before you conclude it did not help.

Understand what counts

• A site's Recycle Bin counts toward the organization's total storage limit. Microsoft recommends monitoring it and emptying it regularly.
• Deleted sites in the Recycle Bin do not count toward the total storage usage.
• Version history is stored with the files. For that, see SharePoint version history limits and trimming, which explains how to measure and trim versions.

Step 2: Find the sites using the most space

In the admin center

On Active sites, review the sites in your tenant and open a large one to see its details, including the storage limit and notifications on the General tab.

With PowerShell

Install the SharePoint Online Management Shell, connect as a SharePoint Administrator, and list sites. Use -Limit All, because the default is 200 sites:

Get-SPOSite -Limit All | Sort-Object StorageUsageCurrent -Descending | Select-Object Url, StorageUsageCurrent -First 20

StorageUsageCurrent is among the properties Microsoft lists for site collections. Microsoft's reference also says that the -Detailed parameter has been deprecated in recent versions of the Management Shell but continues to work in earlier versions. When you use -Limit or -Filter, some properties are not populated, so if a property you expect is blank, query the single site with -Identity instead:

Get-SPOSite -Identity https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/research | Format-List Url, StorageUsageCurrent

Treat the figures as approximate and check them against the admin center.

Site owners can check too

A site administrator can open Site Settings, and under Site Collection Administration select Storage Metrics. On the upper right of the site, select Settings and then Site Settings. If you do not see Site settings, select Site information and then View all site settings.

Step 3: Free up space

Work through these in order, from least risky to most.

1. Empty the recycle bins

Deleted items stay in recycle bins and still count. Ask site owners of the largest sites to empty their recycle bins, or do it yourself with the site collection administrator role. Emptying the bin removes the ability to restore those items, so confirm nothing is needed first.

2. Trim version history

Large files with many saved versions are a common hidden cost. Microsoft's limits page lists a maximum of 50,000 major versions and 511 minor versions, but the practical cost comes much earlier. Set automatic or count-based limits for libraries and trim existing versions, following the steps in our version history guide.

3. Delete or move content you do not need

• Remove duplicate files and old project folders with the site owners' agreement.
• Move large archives to a different system if your retention rules allow it. Check your retention policies first, because a hold can keep deleted content in place and still using space.

4. Delete unused sites

Sites that no one uses can be deleted. Microsoft notes that deleted sites in the Recycle Bin do not count toward total storage usage, so deleting a whole site frees space immediately in the count. Confirm ownership and retention requirements first.

Step 4: Control how sites use the pool

By default storage management is automatic. If you want to limit specific sites, you can switch to manual:

1. In the SharePoint admin center, go to Settings and select Site storage limits.
2. Choose Automatic or Manual, then Save.

Microsoft warns that if you previously set limits manually and switch to pooled storage, SharePoint resets all limits to 25 TB (25,600 GB). The total for your organization might be less than 25 TB.

When the setting is manual, you set limits per site:

1. Go to Active sites and select the site.
2. On the General tab, under Storage limit, select Edit.
3. Enter the maximum storage in GB. The highest value is 25,600 GB, even if your organization has less.
4. Keep Notifications on and set a percentage so site owners get an email when the site approaches its limit.
5. Select Save.

If a site runs out, its administrators can select Request more quota on the Storage Metrics page, which sends a request email to Global Administrators.

If Site Collection Storage Management is enabled and you try to set quotas in PowerShell, Microsoft says you get a generic error. Switch to manual temporarily, set the quotas, and switch back.

Step 5: Add capacity if you still need it

Microsoft lists several options for adding storage. Availability depends on your agreement and tenant type.

Notes on each:

• Office 365 Extra File Storage is not shown if your plan is not eligible. If you bought through Volume Licensing or a Cloud Solution Provider, you cannot buy it directly from Microsoft and must contact your representative or partner.
• For pay-as-you-go, you need an Azure subscription and resource group, the Owner or Contributor role on them, and the SharePoint Administrator or Global Administrator role to reach the admin center. While a tenant is enrolled, it receives no quota-related email or banner notifications, because it is considered within quota. Only usage above the quota is billed.
• You can buy an unlimited amount of extra SharePoint storage, according to the limits page.

Because prices change, check the price on the purchase page before you buy rather than relying on a figure from an article.

What happens when you are over the limit

If a tenant keeps operating above its limits, it is at risk of read-only mode. Users may be unable to add or modify content until usage is reduced or capacity is bought. To restore editing you can reduce storage, buy SharePoint storage or buy eligible licences. If you completed a purchase and Confirm purchase is available, selecting it temporarily removes read-only mode for up to 14 days while the new capacity is applied. It can be used only once in a 365-day period.

Troubleshooting

Checklist

• Record the plan, licence count and the resulting total.
• Check Active sites monthly and note the top 20 sites by size.
• Set version limits on libraries so they cannot grow without bound.
• Ask owners to empty recycle bins on the largest sites.
• Turn on storage notifications if you use manual limits.
• Decide in advance who may buy extra storage and where the cost is charged.

References

• SharePoint limits (Microsoft Learn)
• Manage site storage limits in SharePoint in Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Learn)
• Buy More OneDrive and SharePoint Storage Capacity (Microsoft Learn)
• Get-SPOSite (Microsoft Learn)