Version trimming report

Preview reclaimable storage

Version history is the quietest way a library gets large: five hundred versions of a spreadsheet nobody has opened in three years still cost you storage. This scans the version history you point it at and shows exactly which versions a trim would remove and what it would reclaim. It removes nothing.

What it tells you

• Which files carry enough version history to be worth trimming, and how much each would give back.
• How many versions would go, per file.
• The reclaim total per site, so a tenant-wide picture is one sheet rather than arithmetic.
• Which files could not be read, instead of a total that quietly excludes them.

How it runs

1. Sign in and pick targets. Clicking the tile asks which account to use and how to connect, signs you in if you are not already, and drops you straight on the site list. No feature page asks you to connect a second time. Sites and libraries, or a CSV of them if you already know the list.
2. Set the trim rule. How many versions to keep, or how far back to go. The same options the live trim uses, so the preview is a genuine preview.
3. It reads the version history. Metadata only. It never downloads a version to measure it.
4. Save the workbook. Then, if the numbers justify it, run the live trim from Version history with the same settings.

How it works

The targets you pick, or a CSV of them, expand to libraries: a site to its libraries, and a tenant-wide sweep to every site except hidden system ones. Hidden lists, catalogues and system templates are skipped and logged. Libraries are read one at a time, every file in each with its version history, as metadata only; no version is downloaded.

Files are filtered first by your date, name and extension options. Each file's versions are then taken newest first. The current version is always kept and never counted. A version is removed only when none of your rules (how many to keep, delete before a date, at most so many per day, a minimum interval between versions) wants to keep it; with no rule set, every earlier version would go.

What a trim would reclaim is the recorded size of each version it would remove, added up. A file that cannot be read is counted as failed and the run carries on, and a library that fails is listed and the sweep carries on. If nothing at all could be read, the report fails rather than showing zero. A retention hold produces a warning, not a stop.

The workbook goes into History when the run ends, and a run with failures is kept as completed with errors. When there are more rows than Excel can hold, a CSV with every row is written beside it.

What you get

An Excel workbook, named like contoso-version-trim-preview-20260901-142207.xlsx, kept in Report History whether or not you save it. The file sheet is per file. Trim Statistics is the same run rolled up per site. Versions Not Removed counts versions that failed or were skipped, so it is 0 in a preview.

Summary sheet

The mode, the totals, and the space reclaimable.

Trimmed Files sheet

One row per file, with what the trim would take, and a TOTAL row.

Trim Statistics sheet

The same run, per site.

Libraries not processed sheet

Only when a library failed: which one, and why.

What you need

• Read access to the libraries in scope. The report only reads.
• The live trim, later and separately, needs write access.

What it will not do

• This is a report. The breadcrumb says Version trimming report the whole way through so a preview run can never be mistaken for the real thing.
• The live trim sends removed versions to the recycle bin by default, and deletes them permanently only if you choose that and confirm it. Either way, this report is the way to see the numbers first.
• Figures come from version metadata. SharePoint's own storage numbers settle over a day or so afterwards.

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