Maximum cell limit/rows in a sheet

alexis.ray89371

Hi,

I know the maximum number of cells in a sheet is 500,000 cells in any combination of columns/rows.

My question is does anyone know what happens if the sheet has hit its limit and people still continue to submit data via forms? Does it just not capture the data anymore?

Is there any advance notification/warning to the owner?

I have built tons of projects/tools for all different business lines in my company. As I continue to build more and more I worry about hitting limits and not being aware of it. Then finding out from the client that tons of submissions weren't captured. There's no possible way I can monitor everything I have built.

Just wondering if anyone has any insight on this. Thanks!

MCorbin

I feel your pain! I'm in the same position - I've built waaay more things than I can keep track of.

If you try to add a row to a sheet and you have hit the limit, you will get a warning. I haven't tried it with a form though.

Also - I build automation in that archives and/or moves data from my sheets to help keep us away from the limits. I might handle it a couple of ways:

1) set up automation that moves rows to an "Archive" sheet when they're "closed" or after 6 months (depending on the kind of data.

2) I have my input form add data to a Temp Sheet - that then moves the rows to the appropriate sheet based on parameters (team assigned, type of work, etc - I have all of those broken into different sheets).

The advantage of #2 is that if your destination sheet is full, you wont lose the row, it will just get stuck in the temp sheet. And I have an alert automation that tells me if rows don't get moved from the temp sheet.

alexis.ray89371

Ya, we use a lot of forms. I do have the archive function built for some of them, but the issue is when the archive gets too full as well. We deal with a lot of data.

It would be really beneficial if Smartsheet could build an alert to notify you when a sheet is getting close to the max.

MCorbin

I should also note that right now, I'm getting errors when I try to build a Move Row function that works on anything other than "When Triggered". I have a bunch of them that run daily that I've been setting up since Move Row became a feature (and have been working), but just this week I started getting an error when I set up a new one. I'm working with support on it - I think a bug has been introduced.

(just an FYI - in case you get the same error).

Paul Newcome

I would suggest creating a column that essentially replicates the row number. Then you can set up an Alert Automation to trigger when any cell in this column changes to a specific value. The specific value would depend on what you feel comfortable with. If you want an alert when you are within 500 rows of the limit, then you can use that, but if you don't want to know until you are within 50, then use that. The specific number is just going to depend on your volume and how much advanced notice you want before hitting the limit.

alexis.ray89371

I could. There's just one thing that concerns me about that method. It's not just a row maximum that can max out a sheet. There is a max cell limit which is what I more likely would run into because a lot of my projects have a lot of columns. So, I would hit the max cell limit not row limit.

Paul Newcome

You could modify the formula to account for a lot of columns so that if you have say 100 columns your row column would read

100

200

300

instead of

1

2

3

You could also do some relatively basic math to figure out your row limit based on your number of columns and adjust that specific number accordingly.

alexis.ray89371

Ya, that's a good idea. Thanks. This is just going to be A LOT of work to go back and do this in all my sheets lol. I put in an enhancement request to see if Smartsheet can have this warning functionality just built in.

Do you happen to know what happens if someone submits a form and the sheet is maxed out?

Paul Newcome

I do not. I have never had a project with that much volume and have never had a reason to test it.

Yael Claussen

I've put in an official request for this feature. I agree! It would be great to have some warning before losing functionality and give us some time to archive!

Tbech

Ideas why this message will appear if you have not reached the limit? I imported from an Excel document a new sheet. But now can't copy rows to it from another sheet. Is there a limitation if you import and then can't copy rows to it?

Paul Newcome

@Tbech It may be that when you imported the Excel document it imported a bunch of blank rows at the bottom. Try deleting all unnecessary blank rows from the bottom of the sheet and see if that helps.

Tbech

There were only 5 and I deleted them. I also deleted many other rows and still unable to get the automation to copy a row into this sheet. Same error, I have reached the max cell limit.

Are there any other limits? Like character limits? A few of my imported columns have very long titles in the cells.

Any suggestions on what to try next?

Paul Newcome

@Tbech There is a limit of 4,000 characters per cell (including spaces), 200 columns, and 500,000 cells total. With that last one, if you are using the maximum of 200 columns, you will reach the total cell limit after 2,500 rows.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Tbech

I hope you're well and safe!

To add to Paul's excellent advice/answer.

@Paul Newcome

The Column limit is actually doubled, so it's 400. 🤩

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Tbech

This sheet has only 8 columns and 9271 rows. So even if you use the 500,000 total cells, I don't reach that limit. Something else in this sheet is causing the automation not to work. I have longer tittles in two of the columns but none that exceed 4,000 per cell that was why I was thinking maybe total character limit.