Running a SharePoint Content Cleanup

A content clean-up is a deliberate, scoped exercise to remove redundant, outdated, and trivial content from SharePoint. Done well, it makes search faster, storage cheaper, and the environment easier to govern. Done poorly, it deletes content people still rely on.

Define the scope first

Before you delete anything, decide the boundaries. Pick one of:

• A single site or hub (good for proof-of-concept)
• All sites that have not been modified in 12 or 24 months
• Specific content types known to be problematic (legacy file shares, drafts, exports)

A focused first pass is more useful than an ambitious one that stalls.

Inventory the target content

Run a report on the scope to capture:

• The owner of each site and library
• Last-modified date for each library and folder
• Total size and item count
• Any retention labels already applied

The owner is critical. Never delete content without the documented sign-off of the business owner.

Apply the ROT test

For each piece of content in scope, apply the ROT test:

• Redundant: is this a duplicate of something already kept elsewhere?
• Outdated: is this content superseded by something newer?
• Trivial: did this content ever have business value, or was it transient (notifications, drafts, junk)?

If a file is ROT, it is a candidate for disposal. If a file is a record, it follows the retention plan instead.

Confirm with owners

Send each site owner a disposal list with their content, organised by ROT category. Give them a reasonable review window (10 to 15 business days) to flag anything that should be kept. Owners who do not respond by the deadline have implicitly approved disposal, provided you documented the request.

Execute and document

Once approvals are in:

1. Move approved content to a holding area for the agreed quarantine period (commonly 30 days)
2. If no recovery requests come in, dispose of the content
3. Document what was disposed, when, and by whose authority

Disposal documentation matters. If a question is raised later, you need to show what was removed and why.

Set the baseline so it does not return

A one-off clean-up buys you a year, at most. Pair it with:

• Retention labels on new content
• An annual content review cadence
• Storage growth alerts on key sites

For TC-supported clean-ups, submit a support ticket.