OneDrive File Issues

Can You Set a OneDrive Storage Quota for a Shared Folder?

Rana Garcia Oct 22, 2026 868 views

Question details

The user wants to know how to restrict or allocate a specific storage quota for an individual user within a specific shared folder.

How to Manage OneDrive Storage Quotas for Shared Folders

Product: Microsoft OneDrive
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Managing storage limits and preventing excessive data uploads from users collaborating in a shared OneDrive directory.
Observed behavior: OneDrive natively only allows administrators to adjust an individual's overall account storage limit; it does not provide an option to enforce folder-specific or user-specific data quotas within a shared folder.

Before you start

Check your Microsoft 365 or SharePoint administrative privileges, as global administrator access is required to modify user-level OneDrive storage limits.

Solution 1Recommended

Adjust the Overall User Storage Limit in OneDrive

Since folder-specific quotas do not exist, the primary workaround is to manage the overall storage limit for the individual user.

Microsoft OneDrive currently does not support assigning storage limits to specific shared folders or to individual users within a shared folder. To restrict how much data a user can upload to your shared spaces, an administrator must change the user's total overall OneDrive storage limit instead.

Access the Admin Center

Navigate to Active Users

Click on 'Users' in the left-hand navigation pane, then select 'Active users'.

Select the Target User

Find and click on the specific user whose storage you want to limit to open their properties panel.

Edit Storage Quota

Navigate to the 'OneDrive' tab, locate the 'Storage used' section, and click 'Edit' to customize their maximum overall storage quota.

Adjust the Overall User Storage Limit in OneDrive

Storage Allocation Rule: Keep in mind that files uploaded to a shared folder count against the OneDrive storage quota of the person who originally created and shared the folder, not the person uploading the files.

Solution 2

Monitor File Usage with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Use Microsoft Defender to monitor file uploads and filter specific file types to prevent excessive large file dumps.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I set a storage limit on a specific SharePoint Document Library instead of OneDrive?

Yes. Unlike OneDrive, SharePoint allows administrators to set storage quotas on a per-site basis through the SharePoint admin center. However, it still does not offer per-folder quotas within the same document library.

Will increasing a user's OneDrive storage affect the shared folder's capacity?

Shared folders consume the storage quota of the user who owns the folder. If the folder owner's overall OneDrive storage limit is increased, the shared folder can hold more data, regardless of the collaborators' individual quotas.

Are there third-party tools to restrict folder size in OneDrive?

While third-party governance and backup tools offer advanced reporting and automated file archiving, they cannot override Microsoft's native API limitations to enforce a strict folder-level storage limit.

Document & File Issues