Microsoft 365 - Mailbox Quota

Email mailbox quota is assigned per a user's affiliation/classification with the university.

Paid UW-Madison employees and enrolled students receive 100 GB of mailbox storage.

All other UW-Madison classifications receive 50 GB of mailbox storage.

Important: Due to the Microsoft licensing agreement, the maximum mailbox storage/quota cannot be increased. If you are reaching your mailbox storage/quota, the only options you have are to either delete messages or move messages out of your mailbox.

To find out your mailbox storage/quota, please use the Outlook on the web instructions listed below.

For information on other limits, see Microsoft 365 - What are the limitations for message size, recipient number, and mailbox storage?.

Note for administrators: Some administrative functions in Office 365 require administrators to access a user's account via Outlook on the web, which requires the user to grant the administrator full mailbox permissions. Once the administrator has full mailbox permissions, they can follow these instructions to access the user's account.

View single account quota

Outlook on the web

Note: Whenever an account has used 90% or more of their inbox capacity, Outlook on the web will display a notification until the account is below 90% of inbox capacity.

  1. Log into Outlook on the web.
  2. Click the Settings/gear icon gear/settings _icon.
  3. If prompted, click View all Outlook Settings.
  4. Click General > Storage.

    Important: The total quota usage includes both email and calendar data in the account. The folder listing on this page only shows email folders - it does not include calendar folders. To see your calendar folder/usage, you will need to use Outlook for Windows/Mac desktop client instructions listed below.

Outlook for Windows

Note: These steps assume you are connected to your Microsoft 365 account via Exchange. By default, this feature is turned off.

  1. Start Outlook.
  2. Right-click anywhere on the bottom Outlook bar.
  3. Click on the first option "Quota Information" and you will see that it switches to the "On" mode.
  4. You can now see the amount of free space left and the number of items you have in each folder, in the bottom left hand corner of the Outlook bar.

For calendar usage/quota, use the following steps:

  1. Start Outlook.
  2. Go to Calendar.
  3. Right-click on the desired calendar and select "Properties" from the sub-menu.
  4. Click Folder Size... button.

Outlook for MacOS

Note: These steps assume you are connected to your Microsoft 365 account via Exchange.

  1. Start Outlook.
  2. Right-click on the account name within your mail folder listing and select Properties from the sub-menu.
  3. Click Storage from within "Folder Properties" screen.
  4. Depending on the number of objects (mail folders, calendar items, contacts, and tasks) you have in your account, it can take minutes for this information to be retrieved.