Posey's Tips & Tricks
How Much Space Are You Using in Microsoft 365?
Reclaim your cloud storage by locating unwanted data.
Most Microsoft 365 subscriptions come with a certain amount of cloud storage space. This storage space is what makes it possible to store things like user's OneDrives files, SharePoint sites and Exchange mailboxes in the Microsoft 365 cloud. Unfortunately, the space that Microsoft gives you as a part of your subscription usually is not unlimited, and if you exceed the space that is included with your subscription you may find that you have to purchase additional storage space. So how can you tell how much space is currently being consumed?
Microsoft OneDrive
When it comes to checking your organization's Microsoft 365 storage consumption, I recommend starting with OneDrive. The reason for this is that OneDrive storage tends to be shared among all of an organization's Microsoft 365 users. My subscription for example, includes 1 TB of OneDrive storage, plus an extra 10 GB for each user.
To find out how much OneDrive storage space your organization is consuming, open the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and then click on Reports. From there, click on OneDrive, and then make sure that the Usage tab is selected. This usage report will not only tell you how much storage is being consumed, but you can also see how that storage is being used.
To show you what I mean, take a look at Figure 1. My organization doesn't really use OneDrive. As such, you can see in the figure that I have two OneDrive users and that those two users collectively have roughly about 120 files totaling just under 1.3 GB.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1. The OneDrive report shows you how much space is being used.
The bottom portion of the report lists all of the individual users along with the number of files that each user has stored on OneDrive. You can also see each individual user's total space consumption.
As you look at the previous screen capture, you will probably notice that the section at the bottom of the screen doesn't list any user names. Instead, each user is represented by a long hexadecimal number (which has been partially obscured in the figure). Microsoft hides personally identifiable information by default for the benefit of organizations that are subject to compliance regulations.
So let's suppose for a moment that your OneDrive report reveals that you've got one user who is hogging all of the organization's OneDrive storage space. How can you figure out who it is?
If you need to reveal user named within the reports, you can easily do so. You just need to modify one of the default settings. To do so, go back to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center's Home screen. From there, click on Settings, followed by Org Settings. When the Org Settings screen appears, make sure that the Services tab is selected and then click Reports. The Reports screen contains an option to Display Concealed User, Group, and Site Names in All Reports. You can see what this looks like in Figure 2.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 2. You can change the report settings so that reports will display user names.
SharePoint
Just as Microsoft 365 contains a report outlining OneDrive usage, there is also a report that you can look at to see how heavily SharePoint is being used. Just select the SharePoint option from the list of reports and then select the Site Usage tab. Like the OneDrive report, the SharePoint report will show you the total amount of storage that is being used across all sites, as well as the total number of active files. Whereas the lower portion of the OneDrive report broke down storage consumption by user however, the SharePoint report breaks down storage consumption by site. You can see what the SharePoint report looks like in
Figure 3.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 3. The SharePoint report shows the amount of storage being consumed across your SharePoint sites.
Exchange
Microsoft 365 also provides a report detailing the storage that is being consumed by Exchange mailboxes. To access this information, just select the Exchange report and then select the Mailbox Usage tab. This tab displays the total amount of mailbox storage space that is being consumed, as well as how much space each user is consuming. As you can see in Figure 4, you can also see where users stand with regard to any mailbox quotas that you have put into place. In
Figure 4 for example, both user's mailboxes are listed as good because the mailbox size does not exceed the mailbox quote.
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 4. You can use the Exchange report to monitor mailbox growth.
About the Author
Brien Posey is a 22-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience. As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Prior to going freelance, Posey was a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and health care facilities. He has also served as a network administrator for some of the country's largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox. In addition to his continued work in IT, Posey has spent the last several years actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in preparation to fly on a mission to study polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight training on his Web site.