Increase Maximum Size of Site Template, List Templates in SharePoint

In SharePoint 2007, You can’t save a list or site template (.stp ) file which is bigger than 10MB. MOSS 2007 gives an error message: “The list is too large to save as a template. The size of a template cannot exceed 10485760 bytes.” When you try to save a list or site which by including its content which is more than 10 MB.

How to Increase SharePoint List/Site Template Size?

Just execute this stsadm command line from your SharePoint WFE server. Say, you want to allow site or list template up to 250 MB:

stsadm -o setproperty -propertyname max-template-document-size -propertyvalue 262144000  (250 MB)

The above STSADM sets the property at farm level. Here the command line takes property value in bytes. Technically SharePoint compresses all content and saves with .stp extension, which can be simply renamed to .cab and extracted.

SharePoint 2010 list template size limit:
In SharePoint 2010 and in SharePoint 2013, list template size limit has been raised to 50MB by default.

If you have a document library or list or site with content more than 50MB and when you try to save list as a template including content, by going to list settings >>”Save document library as template”, you get this error message: “The list is too large to save as a template. The size of a template cannot exceed 524288000 bytes.”

SharePoint 2013 version’s Error message:

Same old stsadm can help to increase the template size limit in both SharePoint 2010 and 2013.

Using PowerShell to Get/Set SharePoint list template maximum size:

It’s also possible to use PowerShell. Here is an example of setting SharePoint 2010 list / site template maximum size:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#For MOSS 2007, Uncomment below two lines
#[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")
#[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration")

$webservice = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService

#Get the current Maximum Size
$webservice.MaxTemplateDocumentSize 

#Set New Limit and update
$webservice.MaxTemplateDocumentSize = 524288000 #500 MB
$webservice.Update()