SharePoint Online is out of storage space: tenant and site quota errors

Fix it now

Two different things produce this. Either the tenant has consumed its pooled storage, or one site has reached the limit set for it. The consequence is the same and abrupt: Microsoft states that a tenant operating above its storage limits risks being put into read-only mode, so uploads and edits stop.

Connect-SPOService -Url https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com
Get-SPOSite -Limit All | Sort-Object StorageUsageCurrent -Descending | Select-Object Url,StorageUsageCurrent,StorageQuota -First 20
Set-SPOSite -Identity https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/team -StorageQuota 51200

1. Read the tenant storage figure on the SharePoint admin center home page first. It settles which of the two conversations you are having.
2. The listing above finds the sites holding the data. Compare each site’s usage against its own limit before assuming the tenant is the problem.
3. Empty both stages of the recycle bin on the worst offenders. Microsoft states that the space a site’s recycle bin uses is part of the organisation’s total storage limit.
4. Trim version history on libraries holding large files. Every retained version is stored in full.
5. If one site is at its own limit while the tenant has room, raise that limit rather than deleting anything. The maximum is 25 TB, entered as 25600 GB in the admin centre.
6. If the tenant pool itself is exhausted, raising a site limit achieves nothing. Free space, or add capacity.

If uploads work again and the tenant figure shows headroom, stop here. If you need to know how the pool is calculated before deciding what to buy, that is the next section.

Why it happens

SharePoint storage is pooled at tenant level rather than allocated per site. Microsoft documents the pool as 1 TB base plus 10 GB per licence purchased, so it grows as you add people. There are exceptions worth knowing: Microsoft 365 F1 and F3 and Office 365 F3 provide the 1 TB base only with no per-licence addition, OneDrive standalone plans contribute 0.50 GB per licence, and Visio Plan 2 and Project Plan 3 and 5 contribute approximately 10 GB per licence. The OneDrive created for each licensed user is accounted for separately and is not part of those figures.

Two limits can therefore stop you and they need different fixes. Individual sites draw from the pool automatically by default, in which case the only real ceiling is the tenant total and the documented 25 TB maximum per site. Where an administrator has switched to manual management, each site has its own limit and can hit it while the tenant still has plenty. Read the tenant figure first, because raising a site limit does nothing when the pool behind it is empty.

What actually fills the pool is rarely what people expect. Version history is usually the largest single contributor, because SharePoint stores complete copies rather than differences, so a heavily edited file with a long history can be many times the size of the current document. Recycle bins are second, and Microsoft is explicit that the space they use counts against the organisation’s total. Old project sites nobody has opened in years are third, and they are the easiest to deal with because nobody objects.

Full reference

How the pool is put together

Where the space has gone

Automatic or manual site limits

By default SharePoint manages site storage automatically: the pool is central and sites draw from it as they need to, with nothing to divvy up. Manual management exists for administrators who want to cap individual sites, and it is the reason a single site can be full while the tenant is not. Switching from manual back to automatic resets every site’s limit to 25 TB, which is worth knowing before you make the change on a Friday. When you do set a limit by hand, set the notification threshold alongside it so the site owner is warned rather than surprised.

There is also a route for site administrators who hit a limit: from Site Settings, under Site Collection Administration, Storage Metrics has a Request more quota action that sends a request to global administrators. It is worth pointing people at, because the alternative is a ticket that describes the symptom rather than the site.

Deleting content to free storage is irreversible once both recycle bins are emptied and the retention window has passed. Confirm your backup or retention position before deleting anything to make a figure look better.

Clean-up in the order that actually recovers space

1. Empty both recycle bin stages on the largest sites – the fastest recovery, and reversible until you empty the second stage.
2. Trim version history where libraries hold large, frequently edited files.
3. Archive or remove sites with high usage and no recent activity.
4. Move cold content that must remain discoverable into an archival tier rather than deleting it.
5. Only then decide whether the remaining content genuinely needs more capacity.

Every code this article covers

Confirm the fix worked

1. The tenant storage figure in the SharePoint admin center shows available space.
2. A small test file uploads to the affected site.
3. Re-running the site listing sorted by storage shows the sites you cleaned up have dropped.
4. Version limits and site storage limits are set deliberately, with notification thresholds, so the same shortage does not recur silently.

Questions people ask about this