Minor version limit not applied in a document library

Dear Moddus,

Good day!!

Apologies for the inconvenience caused and please don’t worry, let’s work together on your concern and move towards the resolution path.

I understand your concern and I have tested the behavior at my end where the minor versioning is not respecting the number of minor versions to be stored in the Document Library.

Here are my versioning settings:

As per the above settings, the number of minor versions to be stored is 3, where once it reaches 3 draft versions, it should delete the 1st minor version for creating the 4th draft version.

However, at my end, I was able to see 4 draft version even the settings is set to 3:

In this situation, I would like to suggest you raise a support ticket from the Office 365 admin center, where the related team will investigate the problem further by collecting the HAR logs via reproducing the problem.

Reference: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Note: To create a support ticket, you need to have admin privileges and if you aren’t admin of your Office 365 organization, please contact the admin of creating a new ticket.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. Have a good day!!

Best Regards,
Sophia

Dear Sophia,

Are you sure about what you are telling about minor version?

Please read with attention what this option is telling "Keep drafts for the following number of major versions:"

Thank you!

Dear Moddus,

Thanks for writing back with us.

As per the further confirmation, Minor version of the item in the Document library or list will keep the item in the Draft version and once the draft version is approved by the owner or approver permission of the List, the Draft version (minor version) will be published as Major version:

For example, when I publish the draft version for the document that I used on previous reply:

Reference: How versioning works in lists and libraries - Microsoft Support

However, the minor version is not working as expected at my end that’s the reason we have requested you to raise a support ticket to the related SharePoint Online phone team.

If there is any misunderstanding, you can feel free to correct by sharing more details with some screenshots, where it will help to better understand and guide you further.

Thanks for understanding and if you feel my reply helped to explain your situation, please click on the helpful button (Yes or No) in the reply.

In the future, if you have any further concerns related to Office 365, please feel free to post a new thread in this community and we will try our best to assist you.

Have a good day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia

Do you have any retention policy applied to the site?

If a retention policy applies, then the versioning limit is ignored, prevailing the retention policy settings.

For retention labels, the versioning limit is actually honored.

Hi Sophia,

According microsoft documentation in your case minor versions is working well. Try to create more than 3 major versions and you will see what will happening with minor versions belongs to older major versions.

You can't control the number of minor versions, you just control the number of major versions with minor versions.

Thanks!

Hi Alvaro,

As I told, I don't have retention policies applied. This was one of my verifications.

Thanks!

Dear Moddus,

Thanks for writing back to us.

Apologies for the confusion and I have realized my wrong understanding. However, I would like you to brief about the problem you are facing because you have mentioned "Minor version limit not applied in a document library".

Moreover, as you also clarified that we can't control the number of minor version, does it mean your doubt on the Minor versions is cleared?

Appreciate your patience and have a good day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia

Hi Sophia,

"Moreover, as you also clarified that we can't control the number of minor version, does it mean your doubt on the Minor versions is cleared?" - No, my problem is not answered, because I have configured that my document library should preserve minor versions of 3 last major versions, but sharepoint is preserving minor versions of all major versions.

Thank you!

Dear Moddus,

Thanks for writing back and apologies for the delay in the response.

I have tested the behavior in my test site on the same document where I referred in previous replies of this thread, where I notice the feature to keep drafts for the following number of major versions:

The drafts versions for the major version 1,2,and 3 are deleted once the 4th Major version is published.

Since you mentioned the setting is not working, can you please try to disable the setting and re-enable by changing value from 3 to 4 to see the outcome?

If still not, please check whether the same problem happens on another document library? If not, you can try move the data from the problematic document library to new document library?

If you don’t want to migrate the data to the new document library, you can try to contact the related development team via creating a support ticket from the Office 365 admin center, where they can collect the HAR logs and find out the cause of the problem.

Reference: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Thanks for your patience and understanding. Have a good day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia