Deleted File Share

Question

Deleted File Share

MichaelB-2136 290

Hi, I set up 4 file shares to test restore my critical data at multiple points.

I have since deleted these 4 file shares but they still show up when the deleted shares slider is activated with the undelete option still available.

My concern is that I'm still paying for these test accounts as my cost analysis for storage accounts has yet to go back down to levels prior to the test shares being created. The 4 deleted file shares total almost 1 TB of provisioned storage as they were premium file shares.

My soft delete setting is 14 days and these file shares were of course not backed up so my recovery vault is not in play here.

The first one was deleted on the 1st Apr and as it's now the 14th I would have expected it was gone by now.

Why are they still showing up?

Ravi Varma Mudduluru 12,370 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-21T14:10:41.8333333+00:00
Hello @ MichaelB-2136,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

what you’re seeing is expected when soft delete is enabled on file shares. With a 14-day retention period:

• Any share you delete remains in a “soft deleted” state for the full retention window before it’s permanently purged.

• During that period, the share (and its provisioned quota) still counts against your storage account’s capacity and billing.

• Since your first share was deleted on April 1 and you have 14 days of retention, it won’t be auto-purged until April 15 (14 days after deletion), which is why it’s still showing up today.

If you really need to remove them immediately (and stop incurring cost), you have two options:

Manually purge them now by:

a. Undelete the share.

b. Disable soft delete on the storage account.

c. Delete the share again.

Reference Document:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-files-prevent-file-share-deletion?tabs=azure-portal#disable-soft-delete

If the issue still persists after doing the above steps, please check the private message and share the requested details there.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Upvote" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
MichaelB-2136 290 Reputation points

2026-04-21T14:16:25.4966667+00:00

Hi Ravi, thanks for getting back to me. Your private message is displaying as blank for some reason, regardless, today is April 21st so the first share should have disappeared 6 days ago considering my soft delete setting.
Ravi Varma Mudduluru 12,370 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-21T14:18:23.5633333+00:00

Hello @MichaelB-2136

Could you please try to refresh the page and check the private message?

Answer accepted by question author

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Ravi Varma Mudduluru 12,370 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-21T14:10:41.8333333+00:00

Hello @ MichaelB-2136,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

what you’re seeing is expected when soft delete is enabled on file shares. With a 14-day retention period:

• Any share you delete remains in a “soft deleted” state for the full retention window before it’s permanently purged.

• During that period, the share (and its provisioned quota) still counts against your storage account’s capacity and billing.

• Since your first share was deleted on April 1 and you have 14 days of retention, it won’t be auto-purged until April 15 (14 days after deletion), which is why it’s still showing up today.

If you really need to remove them immediately (and stop incurring cost), you have two options:

Manually purge them now by:

a. Undelete the share.

b. Disable soft delete on the storage account.

c. Delete the share again.

Reference Document:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-files-prevent-file-share-deletion?tabs=azure-portal#disable-soft-delete

If the issue still persists after doing the above steps, please check the private message and share the requested details there.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Upvote" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
MichaelB-2136 290 Reputation points

2026-04-21T14:16:25.4966667+00:00

Hi Ravi, thanks for getting back to me. Your private message is displaying as blank for some reason, regardless, today is April 21st so the first share should have disappeared 6 days ago considering my soft delete setting.
Ravi Varma Mudduluru 12,370 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-21T14:18:23.5633333+00:00

Hello @MichaelB-2136

Could you please try to refresh the page and check the private message?

Answer 1

Hello @ MichaelB-2136

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

As discussed, if the storage account was associated with Azure Site Recovery (ASR), the deletion would be blocked. In such cases, the storage account must first be unregistered from ASR before retrying the deletion.

In your case, I can now see that the storage account has been automatically deleted now.

Reference:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/manage-afs-backup#unregister-a-storage-account

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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Deleted File Share

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