# Trash and storage

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<Lead>
Deleted items are not gone immediately, and your storage is always visible: this page explains the trash, the quotas per plan, the storage settings and the behaviour when storage is full.
</Lead>

## Trash

Whatever you delete lands in the **trash** (Papierkorb, sidebar) first and can be **restored** there with one click, whole folders included. The trash view shows the columns **Name**, **Size** (Größe), **Deleted** (Gelöscht) and **Expires** (Läuft ab).

- **Retention**: **30 days** by default. After that the system deletes permanently, automatically.
- **Configurable**: under **Settings > Files** you set the **trash policy** to 7, 14, 30 or 90 days. The 90-day retention is available from the Standard plan.
- **The trash keeps occupying storage** until it is emptied or items expire.
- **Restoring** is allowed for everyone who may delete (members, admins, owners).
- **Delete permanently** and **Empty trash** are reserved for owners and admins. Both are confirmed by a dialog noting that the action cannot be undone.

## Storage quota per plan

| Plan | Storage |
| --- | --- |
| Trial | 5 GB |
| Compact | 50 GB |
| Standard | 250 GB |
| Max | 1 TB |
| Max+ | 5 TB |

**What counts**: your own uploads, tool results, property media and the trash. **What does not count**: branding assets (logos, favicons), profile pictures and internally generated preview images.

## The storage settings

Under **Settings > Files** you find everything about storage in one place:

<DefinitionList>
  <DefItem term="Storage gauge">Live display "X of Y used" with a percentage. From 80 percent it warns that storage is filling up and the largest files below are worth a look. From 95 percent it warns clearly that storage is almost full: delete files, empty the trash or switch to a larger plan.</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="By origin (Nach Herkunft)">Breakdown per tool, your own uploads, import and "trash (still occupies storage)".</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="By type (Nach Typ)">Breakdown by images, videos, documents and further types down to "other".</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="Largest files (Größte Dateien)">The ten largest files of the workspace, for targeted clean-ups.</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="Active external links (Aktive Links nach außen)">All external share links with expiry and view counts, revocable one by one or all at once. Details: [Sharing externally](/tools/dateien/freigeben).</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="Restricted folders (Eingeschränkte Ordner)">Overview of all folders with an access list, including authorised people and levels. Details: [Folder access](/tools/dateien/zugriff).</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="Members' My files (Meine Dateien der Mitglieder)">The private areas with file count and size per person, never with contents. Orphaned areas of former members are marked; the owner can take them over or delete them.</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="Trash policy (Papierkorb-Richtlinie)">The retention period: 7, 14, 30 or 90 days (90 from the Standard plan).</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="Upload policies (Upload-Richtlinien)">What applies on upload: up to 2 GB per file, executable files blocked, content authenticity check always on.</DefItem>
  <DefItem term="In progress: full export">Announced: exporting the entire workspace storage as a ZIP series (GDPR takeout), as a background job with a download link via notification.</DefItem>
</DefinitionList>

There are also the buttons **Open file store** (Dateispeicher öffnen), **Empty trash** (Papierkorb leeren, owners and admins only) and **View plan** (Plan ansehen).

## When storage is full

<Info title="Nothing is ever deleted automatically">
When storage is full, the platform deletes nothing on its own. New uploads and tool outputs fail with a clear message; everything existing stays untouched.
</Info>

- On upload, the **"Speicher voll"** (storage full) dialog appears. If something is in the trash, it says specifically: "Im Papierkorb liegen {size}. Papierkorb leeren gibt den Platz sofort wieder frei." (The trash holds {size}; emptying it frees the space immediately.) with the buttons **Empty trash** and **Cancel**. If the trash is empty, it points to deleting large files or a larger plan.
- **Duplicate** reports when space is short: "Dein Speicherplatz reicht für eine Kopie nicht aus." (Your storage is not enough for a copy.)
- **Background imports** (for example the onOffice photo sync) stop cleanly and notify the owner instead of blindly loading on.

A step-by-step guide to freeing space is at [Managing storage](/help/howto/storage-quota).

## Further reading

For concrete problems see [Troubleshooting](/tools/dateien/troubleshooting). Back to the [overview](/tools/dateien).