Whether you’re planning a new Salesforce rollout or managing day-to-day operations, knowing the impact of storage limits is crucial. You definitely don’t want to be surprised by a “Storage Limit Exceeded” error.
This guide, expanding on Salesforce’s official documentation, helps you diagnose your current Salesforce storage situation and provides remediation steps, cost considerations, and preventive architectures for both reactive and proactive scenarios.
Salesforce Storage: Spotting the Trap Before (or After) It Springs
Salesforce storage seems simple, but you need to keep an eye on it to avoid it becoming a cost and performance issue.
The first thing you have to keep in mind is that Salesforce provides two main storage types:
- File Storage – attachments, Salesforce Files, content, email attachments
- Data Storage – database records like Accounts, Cases, and custom objects
Practical Takeaway: While some organizations with millions of records may hit data storage limits, file storage grows much faster and is almost always the main bottleneck. Access Setup > Storage Usage for initial assessments of how it is for your org. You can export CSVs for breakdowns by object and file.
Salesforce offers additional file storage at about $300 per month per TB. All in all, we are talking about a recurring cost that compounds as your document volume increases. File storage growth will depend on the organization, but you can anticipate growth of at least 20-30% annually.
Before choosing that route, it’s worth exploring alternatives.
Do I Really Need to Buy More Salesforce Storage?
The short answer is no. You have two main alternatives:
- You can remove unnecessary files, freeing storage space.
- You can store large files externally.
Removing Unnecessary Salesforce Files
For the first option, know that overages often stem from accumulated legacy files, namely email threads with embedded images, scanned documents, and other large attachments and inactive Chatter files.
If you want to pinpoint the main culprits, and you have access to either Salesforce Workbench or the Developer Console, you can run a SOQL query like
SELECT Id, ContentDocumentId, Title, ContentSize, FileType, CreatedDate
FROM ContentVersion
WHERE IsLatest = TRUE
AND CreatedDate < LAST_N_YEARS:2
ORDER BY ContentSize DESC
LIMIT 500
This will give the largest 500 files that are “old” (in this case, more than 2 years old). Deleting them or compressing them might give you some breathing space, but be aware that this is probably going to only fix things for a while.
Offloading Salesforce Files To External Storage
If you decide to store large files externally, it is crucial to ensure minimal disruption by still giving your users full access inside Salesforce. Users should see the files in their usual location in Salesforce and be able to search for them there, while the actual files live in a cheaper, more scalable system.
Can I Use SharePoint External Salesforce Storage?
This is actually a widely adopted pattern—especially because many organizations already use Microsoft 365 and rely on SharePoint for document storage.
Full article: https://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2025/12/cs-dont-let-salesforce-storage-limits-hold-you-back-files-connect-and-beyond
The post Don’t Let Salesforce Storage Limits Hold You Back: Files Connect and Beyond appeared first on CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365.
