Configure Resource Throttling Settings for Large Lists in SharePoint 2016

What is resource throttling in SharePoint?

The biggest performance bottleneck in SharePoint sites is usually caused by large lists. If you have 50 simultaneous users on a site and two of them contribute to large lists, all 50 users will experience very slow performance. Luckily, starting from SharePoint 2010, a feature called “Throttling” was introduced to address this issue. Throttling defines the Maximum number of rows a user can query at a time.

The resource throttling feature in SharePoint is used to configure a Threshold for large lists to prohibit operations that involve too many items, such as queries that return a large number of items or adding a column to a list that contains a large number of items. List throttling is turned on by default in SharePoint 2016, and the default value for List View Threshold is 5,000. When the number of items in a list exceeds this value, users receive a warning when browsing the List Settings page.

SharePoint Resource Throttling List View Threshold

Large lists are always performance killers in SharePoint. Any operation such as data retrieval, update, delete of more than 5000 rows results in an error message “The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator”. It sets the limits on the rows of data that can be retrieved from a SharePoint list or document library at one time to optimize performance in SharePoint.

The throttling feature provides flexibility on User levels, say you want to increase the threshold for Administrators. So, When someone runs the query to retrieve all items, the number of items returned will be determined by the throttling setting for the given list and the user rights.

User accounts which belong to the local server administrators group are not affected by the throttling settings!

How to Change Resource Throttling Threshold in SharePoint?

You can set the throttling settings via central admin.

  1. Central Administration > Application Management  >  Manage Web Application. 
  2. Once in the Web Application List, select the web application and click General Settings > Resource throttling.

List throttling settings set the limit on the row of data that can be retrieved from a SharePoint List View also applies to queries executed by custom code.

Object Model Override
In most cases, you will still need to access, read and modify some objects from the throttled resources. The object model override setting allows users with the appropriate permissions to override the List View Threshold setting programmatically for specific queries. To set this, ensure that the Object Model Override option is set to “Yes”.

List View Threshold for Auditors and Administrators.
The list View Threshold for Auditors and Administrators is set to the maximum number capable of showing all the content from SharePoint. The default value of 20,000, which you may need to fine-tune. Any operations that exceed this limit are prohibited.

Daily Time Window for Large Queries :
Now, set the daily time window for the rest of the users who will also need to access the throttled resources. This can be outside your working hours so that most users will be offline. You can configure it under the “Daily Time Window for Large Queries” setting. Typically, this setting is set outside of working hours to avoid excessive server loads and is often called “happy hour.”

List View Lookup Threshold: This feature limits the number of Lookups, Person/Group, or Workflow Status fields a query can perform. It should not be greater than 8.

List Unique Permissions Threshold: The maximum number of unique permissions allowed per list or library.

Wrapping up

In general, resource throttling in SharePoint is an important feature that helps to ensure the stability and performance of the SharePoint environment. By understanding the various resource throttling settings that can be configured, SharePoint administrators can ensure that the SharePoint environment is optimized for their organization’s needs.

Related post: Configure Resource Throttling in SharePoint 2013 using PowerShell

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - Information Technology Expert with Two-decades of hands-on experience, specializing in SharePoint, PowerShell, Microsoft 365, and related products. He has held various positions including SharePoint Architect, Administrator, Developer and consultant, has helped many organizations to implement and optimize SharePoint solutions. Known for his deep technical expertise, He's passionate about sharing the knowledge and insights to help others, through the real-world articles!

2 thoughts on “Configure Resource Throttling Settings for Large Lists in SharePoint 2016

  • Hi Salaudeen

    One of my SP 2013 library have 70000 items and in order for users to view it, I had set the List View Threshold to 75000. I realize that have a performance impact but the library keep growing, I will have to keep increase LVT, could you advise what I should do. Splitting the library is not a preferred option for the users. Thanks again.

    Reply

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