Audit SharePoint Files with URLs Exceeding a Length Threshold

Manual audit via SharePoint Admin Center and Excel

There is no built-in report in the SharePoint Admin Center that filters files by URL length, so the manual path is a hybrid: generate a raw inventory from a governance export, then filter in Excel.

Step 1 — Open the SharePoint Admin Center

Sign in at https://admin.microsoft.com as a Global or SharePoint Administrator, then open:

Admin centers → SharePoint → Reports → Data access governance

Step 2 — Pull a site-level inventory

From the Data access governance hub, export the Sites with shared content or Permissions report for the site collection you want to audit. Note that these exports give you site and link metadata, not per-file URL lengths.

Step 3 — Export a file inventory from the target site

1. Navigate to the affected site in the SharePoint UI
2. Open the document library in classic view
3. Click Library → Export to Excel (or, for modern libraries, open in Files Explorer view and copy the list)
4. In Excel, add a column with the formula =LEN([@Path]) and filter for values greater than 390

Step 4 — Review and flag

Share the filtered list with the site owner and agree on a remediation plan (rename, move, or archive).

Why this is painful

The manual path works for a single library but does not scale to a tenant-wide audit. For anything beyond one site, use the Graph API or PowerShell approach below.

Enumerate long URLs with Microsoft Graph

There is no single Graph endpoint that filters by URL length, so the pattern is: enumerate sites → enumerate drives → enumerate items (using the delta endpoint for efficiency) → filter client-side on webUrl.length.

Step 1 — List all SharePoint sites

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites?search=*&$top=999
Authorization: Bearer {access_token}

Response contains an array of site objects. Capture each id.

Step 2 — List drives (document libraries) for each site

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site-id}/drives

Step 3 — Enumerate items using the delta endpoint

The delta endpoint returns all items in the drive across paginated responses, and supports a small $select projection so you don't fetch unnecessary fields.

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/{drive-id}/root/delta?$select=name,webUrl,file

Example response (truncated):

{
  "value": [
    {
      "name": "2024-Q4-Reconciliation-Draft-v7-FINAL.xlsx",
      "webUrl": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance/Shared%20Documents/...",
      "file": { "mimeType": "application/vnd.ms-excel" }
    }
  ],
  "@odata.nextLink": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/.../root/delta?token=..."
}

Step 4 — Filter client-side

For each item where file is present (i.e. not a folder) and webUrl.length > 390, record the item. Follow @odata.nextLink until no more pages remain.

Throttling

On HTTP 429 responses, honor the Retry-After header. On very large tenants, consider running the scan per-site in parallel batches of 4–8 sites.

Automate with PowerShell and Microsoft Graph

The downloadable script below uses the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK to enumerate every site and drive in the tenant, walk each drive via the delta endpoint, and export a CSV of files whose webUrl exceeds the configured threshold.

Prerequisites

• PowerShell 7+
• Microsoft.Graph module: Install-Module Microsoft.Graph -Scope CurrentUser
• An account with Sites.Read.All and Files.Read.All consented

How it works

1. Connects to Graph with the required read scopes
2. Lists all sites via Get-MgSite -Search '*'
3. For each site, enumerates its document libraries (drives)
4. For each drive, walks the full item tree using /drives/{id}/root/delta
5. Filters items where webUrl.Length exceeds the -Threshold parameter (default 390)
6. Writes results to CSV and prints a summary

Usage examples

# Tenant-wide audit at default threshold
.\Audit-LongSharePointUrls.ps1

# Custom threshold, scoped to a single site
.\Audit-LongSharePointUrls.ps1 -Threshold 380 -SiteUrl 'https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance'

# Custom output path
.\Audit-LongSharePointUrls.ps1 -OutputPath 'C:\Reports\long-urls.csv'