SharePoint Version History Cleanup: Fix Storage Issues Fast

When SharePoint Storage Becomes Your Biggest Problem (And How to Fix It)

If you’re reading this, chances are you've gotten one of those dreaded emails from IT: "SharePoint storage is at 95% capacity." Maybe you’ve already hit the wall and users are complaining they can't save files due to SharePoint storage limits. Sound familiar?

We recently worked with a client whose tenant had ballooned over their SharePoint storage limit, and were offered a grace period by Microsoft – allowing temporary usage above the limit. The culprit was years of accumulated SharePoint file versions eating up terabytes of space. A single Excel workbook had 247 versions totalling 8.5 GB. One file. Nearly 9 gigabytes.

SharePoint version history problem nobody talks about: How it impacts storage

SharePoint Online version history is brilliant for collaboration, but it’s also a storage black hole. By default, SharePoint keeps 500 versions of every file. That’s reasonable for a 100 KB Word document, but catastrophic for large files like drawings, videos, or design files.

Here’s what we typically see:

• Design files with hundreds of versions, each 50 MB+
• Excel workbooks with daily updates, creating over 200 versions from multiple editors
• PDF documents that accumulate versions over months of reviews

The real kicker is that most organisations don’t even know this is happening. Users see one file, but SharePoint is quietly storing hundreds of copies behind the scenes.

Why SharePoint’s built-in version management tools fall short

Microsoft provides version limits in SharePoint, but they only apply to new libraries. Your existing SharePoint document libraries keep their old settings (usually 500 versions, no expiration). Even worse, you can’t bulk-update thousands of libraries through the admin interface.

The new “automatic” version management helps, but it’s still limited:

• Only affects new content
• Can’t be applied retroactively to existing files
• Doesn’t handle the backlog you’ve already accumulated

SharePoint version cleanup: Our approach to reclaim storage

We built a solution that tackles version bloat systematically:

Step 1: Intelligence Gathering

Before deleting anything, we scan the entire SharePoint Online tenant to understand the scope. Which sites have the most versions? Which files are consuming the most space? This data drives the cleanup strategy.

Step 2: Smart Deletion Algorithm

Our tool implements a two-phase approach:

• Delete older SharePoint file versions older than 30 days (configurable to your needs)
• If still over the limit, remove the oldest versions until reaching the target count (also configurable)

Step 3: Comprehensive Reporting

We generate three reports: before, after, and deletion summaries. This gives you complete visibility into what was removed from your SharePoint environment and how much space was reclaimed.

Real-World Results

In our recent client engagement:

• Scanned 350,000+ SharePoint files across multiple sites
• Identified files with excessive version histories
• Deleted 100,000+ old versions
• Reclaimed over 2 TB of SharePoint storage space

The best part of all is that users never noticed anything changed. Their current files remained untouched, and they retained recent version history for recovery purposes.

The Technical Reality Check

Building this wasn’t straightforward. SharePoint's APIs have quirks:

• The Graph API can delete versions but can't update library settings
• SharePoint’s REST API requires user context for configuration changes
• Rate limiting means you can’t just blast through deletions

We ended up with a hybrid approach: Graph API for version cleanup, and REST API for library settings.

Beyond the Quick Fix

Version cleanup is just the first step. Long-term success requires:

Policy Updates: Set reasonable version limits for SharePoint document libraries (10-50 versions, 30-90 day expiration)

Regular Maintenance: Monthly or quarterly SharePoint version cleanup runs

User Education: Help teams understand version impact on storage

Monitoring: Track SharePoint storage trends and version accumulation patterns

Is This Right for Your Organisation?

This approach works well if you:

• Have limited SharePoint storage or face overage costs
• Store large files (CAD, media, design files)
• Have active collaboration creating many versions
• Want to maintain some SharePoint version history (not just delete everything)

It’s probably overkill if your files are mostly small documents with minimal version activity.

The Bottom Line

SharePoint version bloat is a real problem with a real solution. You don’t have to live with storage alerts or pay massive overage fees. With the right approach, you can reclaim significant SharePoint storage while preserving the version history that actually matters.

The key is being surgical rather than destructive. Keep recent versions for recovery, remove ancient history that nobody needs, and put policies in place to prevent the problem from recurring.

Your storage dashboard will thank you. More importantly, your users will stop getting those “can't save file” errors that make everyone’s day a little bit worse.

Keeping An Eye On Things

After our tool has helped you clear up storage space, it is good practice to monitor SharePoint storage usage periodically to prevent things from getting out of hand again.

There are a number of ways to identify how much storage is being used on the SharePoint environment. The simplest way is to go into the Storage Metrics section of a given site. You will require admin permission to do this, and it will show you the subsites, libraries, folders as well as allow you to drill down to the individual file sizes.

The second option is to go to the SharePoint Admin Centre. Under “All Sites”, you can review the site sizes and this will give you the ability to see, at the tenant down to the site level, the amount of storage you are consuming.

Want to see how much storage you could reclaim in your SharePoint environment?

We’d be happy to run an assessment and discuss a cleanup strategy tailored to your organisation. Reach out to schedule a consultation and let’s tackle your storage challenges together.