SharePoint Online still read-only after buying Office 365 Extra File Storage. How do I get the quota rechecked?

Question

SharePoint Online still read-only after buying Office 365 Extra File Storage. How do I get the quota rechecked?

Manuel Mayer 0

Hi all,

Two days ago our SharePoint Online tenant went into read-only mode because we were over our storage quota. Since then we've bought enough Office 365 Extra File Storage to bring us back under the limit, and the SharePoint admin center now shows the extra capacity.

Even so, every site is still read-only. Users can open files but can't upload, edit or create anything.

This has stopped our business from working normally, so I need it fixed as quickly as possible. My questions are:

Is there a way to make Microsoft recheck our storage quota manually, either in the admin center or with PowerShell?
How long does it usually take for the lock to clear after you buy extra storage?
If waiting won't fix it, should I open a support ticket?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Manuel

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Answer 1

Hi Manuel,

If the additional storage is already showing in the SharePoint Admin Center, the Office 365 Extra File Storage purchase should be applied to your tenant. However, there is unfortunately no documented way for administrators to manually force a tenant-wide storage quota recheck. Microsoft's guidance focuses on verifying the quota and ensuring the tenant is back within its allocated storage limits: SharePoint in Microsoft 365 Out of Storage Space - SharePoint | Microsoft Learn

Regarding timing, Microsoft does not publish a specific SLA for how long it takes an over-quota read-only state to clear after additional storage is purchased. Storage-related information and quota updates can sometimes take 24-48 hours to fully propagate.

Since this issue is affecting business operations and you've already waited two days, you should open a support ticket through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center with your Global Admin account if you haven't done so already. A support engineer can verify whether the tenant is still flagged as over quota or if another lock condition needs to be cleared on the backend and, if necessary, you can request to escalate the case to specialized teams with access to internal systems and logs.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post.

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