"Automatically" option for the Organization version history limit

Question

I am reading about the "Automatically" option for the version history limit @ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/plan-version-storage#understand-version-storage-under-automatic-limits

where it mentioned the following algorithm:-

but what is the idea that versions created at the beginning of the day or at the top of the hour or the beginning of the week will get a preferred settings? i mean i can make an important modification at the end of the day .. or at minutes 35 of an hour and on a weekend?? am i correct?

Second question, for this sentence "The service trims intermediate versions..." so what count as intermediate versions? even in older versions of SharePoint online, when you edit let say a word document online, not every click or text you type will count as a new version,, so are those the same ?? or the above is talking about something different? also for the "Automatically" option, let say i made 2 versions last month to a documents, while i made 40 versions of the document in one day,, then will the service trim let say some versions from the 40 versions while keep the 2 versions from last month? assuming that 40 versions not all of them are needed?? i am really confused?

thanks

Answer 1

Hi @john john Pter ,

The "Automatically" option for version history limits in SharePoint Online is designed to optimize storage by retaining versions at key intervals and trimming intermediate ones. For your questions:

1.You can make important modifications at any time—whether at the end of the day, at minute 35 of an hour, or on a weekend. The system doesn't prioritize versions based on when they're created. Instead, it retains versions at the specified intervals (hourly, daily, weekly) and trims intermediate ones. Therefore, an important edit made at any time will be retained according to the version retention intervals

2.When the documentation mentions "The service trims intermediate versions," it refers to versions that are not at the top of the hour, beginning of the day, or beginning of the week. These intermediate versions are considered less critical for long-term storage and are more likely to be trimmed to save space.

3.If you made 2 versions last month and 40 versions in one day, the system will retain the 2 older versions (since they are beyond 180 days) and the most recent versions up to the 500-version limit. The 40 versions from the recent day will be retained according to the specified intervals, and any intermediate versions will be trimmed. This ensures that you have access to recent versions while optimizing storage by removing less critical ones.

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