How to get back database space

Question

Hello,

I recently deleted a Document library that held around 300k documents (50GB). The database size has not changed at all and was wondering what exactly I need to do to get that 50GB back available for that content database. I was going to do the shrink database task but was nervous about doing that on a production server database.

Thanks In Advance For Any Help

Answer 1

yes, shrink should help with that. It is better to do it during service break: announce that site won't be available some time, then confiugre temporary redirect to service break page (if you don't have such possibility you may just stop Sharepoint site in IIS so users won't be able to do anything there during service break), perform db shrink and then remove service break redirection/start IIS site.

Answer 2

Hi @Msdc ,

I found an official article about Shrinking database you could have a look. And if you are nervous about the task itself, you could post a new post with SQL server tag to ask for more information about shrinking the database.

Here are some official articles about content limit of different versions of SharePoint Server you could take a look:
Software boundaries and limits for SharePoint 2013
Software boundaries and limits for SharePoint Servers 2016 and 2019

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