Delete All Document Versions in SharePoint Document Library using PowerShell
Requirement: Delete all old document versions in a SharePoint site collection to free up some disk space occupied by document versions. Because simply disabling versioning does not delete old versions which are already created until the next update happens on the document! So, If you want to release the space occupied by previous versions, you’ll have to remove them manually.
How to delete document versions in SharePoint?
To Delete all previous versions of a document in SharePoint, follow these steps:
- Navigate to your SharePoint Library, click the ellipse (…), and then click on “Version History”.
- From the version history page, click on the “Delete all versions” link, and confirm if prompted!
PowerShell to delete all Document Versions in SharePoint:
Here is the PowerShell script to clear all version history from all documents from a SharePoint document library.
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
#Configuration Parameters
$WebURL = "https://portal.crescent.com.com/projects/"
$ListName = "Documents"
#Get the Web, List objects
$Web= Get-SPWeb $WebURL
$List= $web.Lists[$ListName]
#Get all Items from the List
$ListItems = $List.Items
Write-host "Total Items Found in the List:"$List.ItemCount
$Counter =0
#Query to batch process
$Query = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPQuery
$Query.ViewAttributes = "Scope='Recursive'"
$Query.RowLimit = "2000"
Do {
#Get List Items defined by the Query
$ListItems = $List.GetItems($Query)
$Query.ListItemCollectionPosition = $ListItems.ListItemCollectionPosition
#Iterate through each item
ForEach ($ListItem in $ListItems)
{
#Display Progress bar
$Counter=$Counter+1
Write-Progress -Activity "Cleaning up versions" -Status "Processing Item:$($ListItem['Name']) $($counter) of $($List.ItemCount)" -PercentComplete $($Counter/$List.ItemCount*100)
#If the File has versions, clean it up
if ($ListItem.Versions.Count -gt 1)
{
Write-host "Cleaning versions for: " $ListItem["Name"]
$ListItem.file.Versions.DeleteAll()
}
}
} While ($Query.ListItemCollectionPosition -ne $Null)
SharePoint: PowerShell to Delete All Versions for the entire site collection
How about deleting document versions for all document libraries in a site collection? Here is the PowerShell script to delete all document versions in a site collection:
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
#Get the Site Collection
$site = Get-SPSite "https://sharepoint.crescent.com/sites/operations"
#Loop through all sites in the site collection
foreach($web in $site.AllWebs)
{
#Iterate through all Lists
foreach($List in $Web.Lists)
{
#Get only document libraries & Skip Hidden
if( ($List.BaseType -eq "DocumentLibrary") -and ($List.EnableVersioning) -and ($List.Hidden -eq $false) -and($List.IsApplicationList -eq $false) )
{
#loop through each item
foreach ($item in $list.Items)
{
if($item.File.Versions.Count -gt 0)
{
# delete all versions
Write-Host "Deleting $($item.File.Versions.Count) Version(s) on: $($web.URL)$($item.URL)"
$item.file.Versions.DeleteAll()
}
}
}
}
}
$site.Dispose()
Write-Host "Script execution Completed!"
This PowerShell script will delete old versions in SharePoint document libraries for the entire site collection.
Related posts:
Hello. how would i do this in batches? i exceed the list view threshold
The first script has been updated! You can batch process list items to mitigate List view threshold exceeded error.
Could you please provide me the script for SharePoint Online?
Here you go: How to delete document versions in SharePoint Online?