SharePoint (Online and On-Premises) - Thresholds and Limits

In SharePoint (Online and On-Premises), there are several thresholds and limits you should be aware of to ensure performance and avoid unexpected errors. Below is a categorized list of important thresholds:

1. List and Library Limits

Feature	Limit
List view threshold (items per view)	5,000 items
List row size limit	8,000 bytes per row
Maximum number of lookup columns	12
Unique permissions per list	50,000 items (performance may degrade after 5,000)
Maximum list items	30 million
List size	Recommended under 100 GB

2. Document Library Limits

Feature	Limit
File upload size	250 GB (SharePoint Online)
Maximum files per library	Up to 30 million
Number of major versions	511
Number of minor versions	511
OneDrive sync limit	Up to 300,000 files across all libraries

3. Site Collection and Web Application Limits

Feature	Limit
Site collection size	Up to 100 TB
Subsites per site collection	2,000
Webs per site collection	2,000
Items per site collection	30 million

4. SharePoint Online Specific Limits

Feature	Limit
Total storage per tenant	1 TB + 10 GB per licensed user
Site collections per tenant	2 million
Hub sites	Up to 2,000
SharePoint group membership	5,000 users per group
People in a Microsoft 365 Group	25,000 users

5. Search Limits

Feature	Limit
Indexed items per tenant	500 million items
Search result limit (UI)	500 items per query
Refiners per query	10
Displayed refiners	15

6. User Limits

Feature	Limit
Users per tenant	Unlimited (based on licenses)
Users per SharePoint group	5,000 (recommended)
Concurrent users	No hard limit, but throttling applies

7. Workflow Limits

Feature	Limit
Workflows per list	Unlimited
Actions per workflow	~500 (recommended)
Workflow size	5 MB (compressed XAML)
Power Automate runs	Depends on license (e.g., 2,000 runs/user/month)

8. Other Technical Limits

Feature	Limit
Managed metadata terms	1 million
Columns in a list	276 (including hidden/internal)
Single line text column	255 characters
Lookup field value limit	8 in a view (to avoid threshold errors)
SharePoint group limit per site	10,000 groups

If you’re using SharePoint On-Premises (2016/2019), some of these limits can be modified via Central Admin or PowerShell.

If you need thresholds specific to:

• Performance tuning
• Custom solutions
• Search schema