Can we define a default value for the number of major versions inside our SharePoint libraries, that get applied to new and existing libraries

Question

When we create a new SharePoint site and/or new document libraries, they will have their number of default major versions to 500

so is there a way to change this number to be 50 instead of 500 and apply this settings to new and existing libraries ?

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi john ,

Welcome to Q&A forum!

Yes, you can set the default major version for the entire site through PowerShell. SharePoint in Microsoft 365 Library Settings allows a range of 100-50000 major versions, you can choose within this range. Then run the following PowerShell in the SharePoint Online Management Shell as an admin:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
#Import SharePoint Online PowerShell Module
Import-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -DisableNameChecking
  
Function Set-SPOSiteVersionHistoryLimit()
{
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $SiteURL,
        [parameter(Mandatory=$false)][int]$VersioningLimit = 100
    )
    Try {
        #Get Credentials to connect
        $Cred= Get-Credential
   
        #Setup the context
        $Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($SiteURL)
        $Ctx.Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($Cred.Username, $Cred.Password)       
         
        #Get All Lists from the Web
        $Lists = $Ctx.Web.Lists
        $Ctx.Load($Lists)
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
          
        #Array to exclude system libraries
        $SystemLibraries = @("Form Templates", "Pages", "Preservation Hold Library","Site Assets", "Site Pages", "Images",
                            "Site Collection Documents", "Site Collection Images","Style Library")
          
        #Get All document libraries
        $DocumentLibraries = $Lists | Where {$_.BaseType -eq "DocumentLibrary" -and $_.Hidden -eq $False -and $_.Title -notin $SystemLibraries}
         
        #Set Versioning Limits
        ForEach($Library in $DocumentLibraries)
        {
            #Get the Library's versioning settings
            $Library.Retrieve("EnableVersioning")
            $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
 
            #powershell to set limit on version history
            If($Library.EnableVersioning)
            {
                #Set versioning limit
                $Library.MajorVersionLimit = $VersioningLimit
                $Library.Update()
                $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
                Write-host -f Green "Version History Settings has been Updated on '$($Library.Title)'"
            }
            Else
            {
                Write-host -f Yellow "Version History is turned-off at '$($Library.Title)'"
            }
        }
    }
    Catch {
        Write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message
    }
}
  
#Call the function to set version history limit
Set-SPOSiteVersionHistoryLimit -SiteURL "https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename"

In the test, the value I filled in is 100, and the result is as follows:

Note: please select the appropriate number of versions according to your needs, so as not to take up a lot of memory in the version history and affect the performance of the site.

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