A guide to checking the size of a folder in SharePoint Online

If you’re navigating your SharePoint Online site documents often, you’ve more than likely ran into folders frequently. Folders contain files, as well as additional folders. As you’d expect, this causes them to grow in file size. If your site utilises a manually set storage quota, you may wish to clean up folders which are getting too big. Unfortunately, you’ve found you don’t know how best to check. This post, you’ll soon find, is your solution. 

Solution: 

  1. Go to office.com and launch SharePoint.
  2. Go to your site and open site documents.
  3. Right click the folder
  4. Select details
  5. Scroll down to the file size.

First off, we’ll be getting started with the image guided walkthrough you’re used to. After we’ll be finishing off by discussing why you should attempt to prune redundant or otherwise unneeded files. 

Quick links: 

Walkthrough for viewing a folder’s size in SharePoint Online 

  • Get SharePoint from $6.00 per month with Microsoft 365 Business Basic.

Step 1 – Open site documents 

  • From the left side panel, find and select Documents. This will open a page from which we can access your site’s directory of files. 

Step 2 – Navigate to your desired folder. 

  • Folders are represented by a folder icon (much like a yellow card) followed by their name. 
  • Left clicking a folder will open it, allowing you to navigate through what’s inside.  
  • Use this information to get to a folder you’d like to check the size of. 
  • Do not open your target folder. 

Step 3 – Open folder details 

  • Right click the folder to gain access to its context menu. Locate and click Details at the bottom of the context menu. 

Step 4 – Scroll through details to find folder size 

  • Using the new details side panel (on the right), scroll to the bottom and find your File size
  • Please note the size unit will automatically adjust in accordance with the folder/file’s size. 
  • As such, If large enough your size may be displayed as kilobytes (kb), megabytes (mb), gigabytes (gb) or terabytes (tb). 

Converting folder size from one unit to another unit 

What is the point of this 

Many people may struggle to determine if one folder is larger or smaller than another if they observe the folder in a different unit of measurement than you. In the event this happens, it may be useful to convert your value to match their unit of measurement. 

Step 1 – Open your preferred browser 

  • We’d like to mention we’re using Firefox for this example, albeit your browser choice should not matter, so long as you use the correct search engine (Google). 

Step 2 – Access Google’s unit converter 

  • Using your browser’s search bar, enter the search term Unit converter

Step 3 – Configure Google’s unit converter for file sizes 

  • Open the dropdown at the top of the converter. From its options, select Digital Storage. This will allow us to convert values associated with file/folder sizes.  

Step 4 – Begin converting 

  • In this example, we convert 1 megabyte to 1000 kilobytes. 

The importance of pruning redundant or unneeded files/folders 

What is considered redundant or unneeded 

A redundant file would be a duplicate file, or file containing duplicate information. This means the file is an unnecessary copy, or contains data accessible in another file. An unneeded file refers to a file that is in no way required. If a file holds no value in terms of the site functioning it isn’t needed. Lastly, a redundant or unneeded folder refers to folders containing useless files. Take for instance cache folders, which are often cleared to produce more storage space on devices. 

End note 

Recap 

In this post we’ve discovered how you may assess folder sizes (as well as file sizes in the exact same way), convert digital storages value from one unit to another, and learnt why we should prune files we don’t need. 

Farewell 

Thank you for reading this post. If you found it helpful or informative, please consider checking out our related articles listed below. The site is full of guides and troubleshooting tips for all your digital adventures and frequently updated- just for you.

Our related articles: 

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  • SharePoint document library search doesn’t work: How to fix – There are a vast number of reasons for SharePoint to malfunction. Here we’ll be helping you get through a few potential causes, and hopefully resolving them with our tested solutions. 
  • SharePoint: can’t add site members: Causes and fixes – SharePoint servers as a collaborative document manager. As such, the collaboration based functionality is about as important as the management functionality. Despite that, SharePoint may on occasion run into issues adding site members- in this blog we’ll be running through some causes and discussing fixes. 
  • What is the simplest way to transfer files from Google Suite to SharePoint? – If you’ve decided on switching from the Google Suite to the Office 365 Suite, you may be a little baffled as to how to go about it. Fortunately for you, we’ve got a better method than re-downloading and uploading everything one-by-one. Have a read to find out more. 

Jack Mitchell

Jack Mitchell has been the Operations manager at telecoms and MSP Optionbox for more than 4 years. He has played a crucial role in the company, from marketing to helpdesk, and ensures that the IT requirements of over 300 clients are continuously met. With his innate passion for technology and troubleshooting and a particular interest in Apple products, Jack now delivers the most comprehensive tech guides to make your life easier. You can connect with Jack on LinkedIn.

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