How to permanently delete a site in SharePoint

 

How to permanently delete a site in SharePoint

SharePoint is a powerful collaboration platform that can be used to create and manage websites. If you're a SharePoint administrator, you may need to permanently delete sites that are no longer in use. This blog post will show you how to permanently delete a site in SharePoint.

To permanently delete a site in SharePoint, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Deleted sites page in the SharePoint admin center.
2. Sign in with an account that has admin permissions for your organization.
3. In the left column, select the site you want to delete.
4. Click Delete.
5. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

SharePoint will permanently delete the site and all of its contents. This includes:

• Document libraries and files
• Lists and list data
• Site settings and history
• Any subsites and their contents

It's important to note that you cannot permanently delete the root site for your organization. The root site is the top-level site in your SharePoint tenant. If you permanently delete the root site, all of your SharePoint sites will be deleted.

Here are some tips for permanently deleting a site in SharePoint:

• Make sure that you have deleted all of the content in the site before you permanently delete the site itself.
• If the site contains any sensitive data, be sure to delete the data before you permanently delete the site.
• If the site is a subsite, be sure to permanently delete the parent site before you permanently delete the subsite.
• If you are deleting a site that is used by a team, be sure to notify the team members before you permanently delete the site.

I hope this blog post has helped you understand how to permanently delete a site in SharePoint.

In addition to the steps above, you can also permanently delete a site by using PowerShell. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Download the latest SharePoint Online Management Shell.
2. Connect to SharePoint as a Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator in Microsoft 365.
3. Run the following command:

Remove-SPODeletedSite -Identity https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitetoremove

(Where https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitetoremove is the URL of the site you want to permanently delete).

For more information about using the Remove-SPODeletedSite command, see the SharePoint Online Management Shell documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-online/remove-spodeletedsite?view=sharepoint-ps.