What limitations are there in Microsoft 365, regarding document management?

These are some of the limitations in Microsoft 365 that you might have to take into consideration when working with documents in MetaShare:

1. Blocked file-extensions: none (you can upload all file-types to SharePoint Online)
2. File-types that are opened in the File Viewer in Microsoft 365 (document preview): 320+
3. Maximum document name length:
   1. Document’s name: 256 characters
   2. Document’s path: 400 characters
4. Maximum number of versions:
   1. Minor versions: 511 (thereafter a document needs to be published to a major version)
   2. Major versions:
      1. SharePoint Online: 50 000
      2. SharePoint Server: 400 000
5. Upload limits:
   1. Per workspace/site collection:
      1. Size of the workspace:
         • SharePoint Online: 25 TB
         • SharePoint Server: 4 TB
      2. Amount of files and folders: 30 million
         • Exceeding 5 000 files, you will hit a SharePoint limit called “List view threshold value”. Once exceeded, you will not be able to sort files unless these columns first are indexed. On SharePoint server you can adjust this limit but not on SharePoint Online.
         • Exceeding 100 000 files, you will not be able to change permissions on the library or folder. If you need to change permissions you will first have to delete documents so you have less than 100 000, change permissions and then restore the documents from the recycle bin. You will however still be able to share individual documents within workspace, up to the maximum number of unique permissions in the library (the limit is 50 000, but the recommended general limit is 5 000).
   2. Per document:
      1. SharePoint Online: 100 GB
      2. SharePoint Server 2019: 15 GB
      3. MetaShare: 250 MB (standard SharePoint can be used to upload larger documents)
6. Maximum number of unique security scopes (unique permissions) per list/library:
   1. Recommended limit: 5 000 (as the number of unique permissions in a list grows, query performance will degrade)
   2. Hard limit: 50 000 (exceeding this limit, SharePoint will throw this error message “You cannot break inheritance for this item because there are too many items with unique permissions in this list”)
7. Restrictions in SharePoint’s term store:
   1. Maximum number of levels of nested terms: 7 levels (a parent term, and six levels of nesting below it)
   2. Maximum number of term sets in the term store: 1 000
   3. Maximum number of terms in a term set: 30 000
   4. Maximum number of items in the term store:
      1. SharePoint Online: 200 000
      2. SharePoint Server: 1 000 000
   5. Non permitted characters in terms
   6. Limitations in numbers of characters:
      1. A term’s name cannot exceed 256 characters
      2. A term’s description cannot exceed 1 000 characters
8. Restrictions in SharePoint search:
   1. Maximum crawled property mappings: 100 crawled properties per managed property
9. Invalid file and folder names:
   1. Invalid characters in files and folders:
      1. ” (quotation mark)
      2. * (asterisk)
      3. : (colon)
      4. < (less than Symbol)
      5. > (greater than Symbol)
      6. ? (question Mark)
      7. / (slash)
      8. \ (backslash)
      9. | (pipe)
   2. Characters that could cause issues when opening files from SharePoint search:
      1. + (plus)
   3. Invalid names on files and folders:
      1. .lock
      2. CON
      3. PRN
      4. AUX
      5. NUL
      6. COM0 – COM9
      7. LPT0 – LPT9
   4. Text-string that cannot appear inside file- and folder names:
      1. _vti_

For further details about the different limits in SharePoint, read these pages:

• SharePoint limitations (SharePoint Online)
• SharePoint limitation (SharePoint Server)
• Invalid file names and file types in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint
• Limitations in other Microsoft applications:
  • OneDrive service description
  • Restrictions and limitations when you sync SharePoint libraries to your computer through OneDrive for Business
  • Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams