Storage Usage
Storage Usage is a Setup page in Salesforce that shows how much of your org's data storage and file storage is currently consumed.
Definition
Storage Usage is a Setup page in Salesforce that shows how much of your org's data storage and file storage is currently consumed. It reports your total allocation, the amount used, the percentage remaining, and a breakdown of which record types and which users account for the largest share.
You reach it by entering Storage in the Quick Find box in Setup and selecting Storage Usage. The page is read-only. It does not change anything on its own. Its value is diagnostic: it tells an administrator where storage is going so they can decide what to archive, delete, or move before the org runs low on space.
How Salesforce measures and reports your storage
Data storage and file storage are two separate buckets
Salesforce splits storage into two pools that are allocated and tracked independently. Data storage holds records: Accounts, Contacts, Cases, custom object rows, and similar structured data. File storage holds binary content: Salesforce Files (Content Documents), attachments, items on the Documents tab, and files attached to Knowledge articles. The Storage Usage page shows both pools side by side, each with its own limit and its own percent-used figure. The distinction matters because the two fill up for different reasons. Data storage climbs when transactional objects accumulate rows, so a support org watching Cases grow sees pressure there. File storage climbs when users and integrations upload documents, images, and email content, and a single large file can move the needle far more than a thousand records. An org can sit comfortably on data storage while running short on file storage, or the reverse. Reading both numbers separately, rather than assuming one total, is the first thing the page teaches you. Each pool is also allocated by a different formula, which the next section covers.
How records are counted: a fixed size per row
Data storage is not measured by the actual bytes in your fields. Salesforce assigns each record a fixed allocation regardless of how full its fields are. Most records count as 2 KB each, whether the record has three fields populated or three hundred. This makes consumption predictable: roughly 500,000 standard records equal about 1 GB of data storage. A few record types carry a different fixed size. Campaigns count as 8 KB each. Person Accounts count as 4 KB, because each one is really a junction of an Account record and a Contact record. Knowledge articles count around 4 KB and can vary with rich text content. Campaign Members are lighter at 1 KB. Email Messages are an exception to the fixed model: a small one counts near 2 KB, but a large HTML email consumes close to its real size, so a 100 KB message uses about 100 KB. Knowing these sizes lets you translate a record count on the Storage Usage page into real megabytes, and it explains why an object with millions of small rows can quietly dominate your data storage while looking harmless in a list view.
What the page actually shows you
At the top, the page states your data storage limit, how much is used, and the percentage consumed, then repeats the same three figures for file storage. Below that, two breakdown tables do the real work. The data storage table lists record types with a count of records and the percentage of your data storage each type occupies, so you can see at a glance that, for example, Cases or a custom logging object is the biggest contributor. The file storage table works the same way for binary content. Salesforce documentation gives a worked illustration: an org using 720 MB of a 10.4 GB file limit (about 7 percent) might see that share split as Content Bodies at 90 percent, Knowledge at 5 percent, Documents at 3 percent, and Attachments at 2 percent. There is also a section showing the users who consume the most file storage, which is how you find the person or integration account uploading large files. The page gives you the where and the how-much in one view, which is exactly what you need before deciding what to clean up.
How your allocation is calculated
Your storage limit is not a flat number. It is a base amount per org plus an increment per licensed user, and both parts depend on your edition. For data storage, Contact Manager, Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions start at 10 GB per org. Professional and Enterprise then add 20 MB per user license, while Performance and Unlimited add 120 MB per user. So a Professional org with 10 users has 10 GB plus 200 MB, totaling 10.2 GB of data storage. File storage follows a similar two-part formula but with larger per-user amounts. Those same editions start at 10 GB per org, then add 612 MB per user for Contact Manager, Group, and Professional, or 2 GB per user for Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited. One caveat: orgs with fewer than 10 users on Contact Manager, Group, or Professional get 1 GB per user instead. Developer Edition runs on a small fixed allocation. Because allocation scales with user count, adding or removing licenses changes your limit, and the Storage Usage page always reflects the current entitlement rather than a number you set.
Why a periodic review pays off
The Storage Usage page has one notable gap: Salesforce does not chart storage over time. The page is a snapshot of right now, with no built-in trend line for last month or last quarter. That makes a scheduled manual review the practical way to spot a problem early, because by the time you are at 95 percent the cheap fixes are already gone. The cost curve rewards acting ahead of the cap. An object growing 200,000 records a quarter looks fine for a year, then suddenly becomes a budget line when you exceed your allocation and need to buy more. A file storage bucket full of integration logs from three years ago is paying rent on data nobody opens. Checking the page on a regular cadence, capturing the percentage and the top contributors each time, gives you the trend that the product does not. It turns a reactive scramble (the org is full, what do we delete today) into a planned decision (this object is trending up, let us archive it next sprint). The review costs a few minutes and routinely saves a procurement conversation.
Turning the numbers into action
Once the page tells you where storage is going, you have a short menu of responses. For data storage, the usual move is to remove records you no longer need transactionally. Old Cases, closed Leads, and stale custom object rows can be deleted, but remember that deleted records sit in the Recycle Bin and still count against storage for up to 15 days unless you hard delete them. For records you must keep but rarely query, archiving to Big Objects moves them out of standard data storage while keeping them available. For file storage, the largest contributors are usually a few users or integration accounts, so the per-user table points you straight at them. You might delete obsolete file versions, move large reference documents to an external store linked through Files Connect, or stop an integration from writing oversized payloads into the org. Before any bulk delete, take a fresh export so you can recover if needed. The Storage Usage page does not do the cleanup for you, but it makes every cleanup decision an informed one instead of a guess, which is the whole point of looking at it.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Data and File Storage AllocationsSalesforce
- Monitor data storageSalesforce
- Salesforce record size overviewSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Storage Usage.
- Data and File Storage AllocationsSalesforce
- Salesforce Files Storage AllocationsSalesforce
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Storage Usage.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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