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Where are attachments stored?

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Posted on by Christoph_G

Hello,

I have two questions concerning CDS attachments (the ones you can add after ticking the box "Enable attachments (including notes and files)")

1) Where are attachments stored?
I can access them in PowerApps via ThisItem.{Attachments} which works fine; but when i look into the Entitiy "Attachments" in the CDS it is empty.

2) How much storage do i have for Attachments in total?
This Post talks about 10MB size limit per attachment, but not about the total file storage.
I in general would be interested in CDS Storage.
On this site it says sth about "File Storage in CDS per User" and "Data Storage in CDS per User" but both of these lines have no value specified.
On pricing.powerapps.com there is also no specification concerning storage amount. It just refers to the upper link where there is no specification either (as already stated)

Thank you and kind regards
Christoph

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

CDSStorageCapacti...

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v-monli-msft on at

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Hi @Christoph_G,

Did you make sure that you have followed the steps here:

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/add-attachments-to-your-common-data-service-entities/

You can access the attachment using attachment control for canvas PowerApps.

Regards,

Mona

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Christoph_G 62 on at

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hi @v-monli-msft

thank you for your answer and sorry the question, but: did you even read my question?

I did write that attaching files and accessing the attachments in PowerApps works fine.

The real question was where attachments are stored in the background.... Apparently not in the "Attachments" Entity of the CDS (since it's empty; also if there are attachments on records), but where?
Second question: How much storage is available for attachments within the CDS there's no information to be found anywhere (or at least i didn't find it...)

Thank you and kind regards
Christoph

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Abe Saldana 75 on at

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Christoph_G,

The attachements when you enable the Notes and Attachements, are saved to the entity Annotations, that is related automatically with that entity.

There are other ways to save the attachments and that is when in Dynamics 365 CE you enable SharePoint integrations, but the most comon one is to use the Annotations (Notes) entity out of the box.
The space is limited to 10MB per attachment, you can add as many attachments and that will impact your CDS and Dynamics 365 Data base, and will incurr in a charge on data space.

Hope this helps.

Abe.

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Usman_IBI 35 on at

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There is no such entity as Annotations or Notes.

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Abe Saldana 75 on at

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when you expand all entities, using the link at the end of the list of entities you will see a complete list, to reset the filter on the list.

I attached the image showing the Annotations (Note) entity that is the one assigned when you enable the entity, and also another image where you configure and add the notes to an entity.

Hope this will help you!

abe

Entity list Showi...

Enable Notes in E...

Enable Notes in E...

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Usman_IBI 35 on at

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Thanks for the update. How to get these attachments for a particular record using Flow?
What would be the identifier?

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takolota1 4,974 Moderator on at

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None of the files I uploaded to a file column are shown in Annotations, or any other table on Dataverse for that matter. Where are they?

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TonyKuiper1967 14 on at

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They are in the list of tables. You need to select ALL instead of recommended. Search (top right) for notes and the table is there.

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TonyKuiper1967 14 on at

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I think one thing that may be missing would be to alias that Notes table into the "working" table so that the data is accessible on forms and views. Perhaps someone has an answer on doing this???

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Inogic 1,135 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi Christoph,
Great questions—these are common pain points for anyone working with attachments in Dataverse (formerly CDS).
1) Where are attachments stored?
When you enable attachments in Power Apps, they’re stored in the Annotation (Notes) table—not in a separate “Attachments” entity, which is why that appears empty. Each note record contains a DocumentBody field where the file is stored (as Base64). The ThisItem.Attachments reference in Power Apps abstracts this and works as expected, but under the hood, it’s pulling from Notes.
2) How much storage do I have for attachments?
Here's a quick breakdown of how storage works in Dataverse (formerly CDS):

Dataverse has three main storage types:

Database: For structured data (like text, numbers)

File: For attachments, notes, images, etc.

Log: For auditing and logging data

Each license includes a baseline quota, and then additional capacity can be purchased. As of the latest info:

File Storage starts at 20 GB per tenant, plus 2 GB per user license

There's a 10 MB size limit per attachment for notes (as you mentioned)

Unfortunately, attachments (especially email files and images) can eat through your file storage quickly—and buying extra storage can get expensive.
Possible Solutions:

Clean up old/unneeded files regularly

Move large or historical attachments to external storage

If storage cost or limits are a concern, you might want to explore tools like Attach2Dynamics by Inogic. It integrates Dynamics 365 CRM with Azure Blob Storage, SharePoint, and Dropbox, helping you:

Migrate email, notes and sales literature attachments to cloud—automatically in bulk

Free up Dataverse storage space

Manage documents from within the CRM with a user-friendly interface

Upload files up to 1.5 GB to Cloud

It’s a smart way to reduce storage costs while improving document management and backup.

Thanks,

Sam

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