Is It Possible to Instantly Detect SharePoint File Creations Using Power Automate?

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Posted on by CU24062200-0

We have the standard Power Automate license within our company. Using Power Automate, we are operating a document numbering system within our team by utilizing the "When a file is created (properties only)" trigger for SharePoint so that whenever a folder or file is created in a SharePoint document library, Power Automate detects it.

However, the "When a file is created (properties only)" trigger for SharePoint is based on 1-minute polling, which means there can be up to a 1-minute delay in detection.

Is there any way to detect this event immediately (in real time) using Power Automate?

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Vish WR 3,507 on at

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@CU24062200-0

Before, they had settings to change, but this feature is not available anymore.

The delay depends on the Power Automate service check to perform the check at regual interval check. We can't set how often to check.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/business-apps/power-automate/sharepoint-connector-actions-triggers#:~:text=Flow%20runs,an%20item%20or%20a%20file.

When you build a Power Automate flow to be triggered for an item, or for creating or modifying a file, Power Automate periodically checks for changes in the list or library, configured in the flow's trigger. In most cases, if there is a single change in the list or library, the flow run may occur within minutes after that change. However, expect that the flow may gather more than one change in subsequent flow runs due to the time between the flow interval since its last valid change, or subsequent edits to an item or a file.

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11manish 2,782 on at

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No — not with standard Power Automate + SharePoint triggers.

There will always be a slight delay (typically up to ~1 minute)

If you need true instant behavior, you must:

Move to event-driven architecture (webhooks / app-driven)

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Valantis 6,233 on at

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Hi @CU24062200-0,

Unfortunately there is no way to get true real-time detection of SharePoint file creation using the standard Power Automate SharePoint connector.

The "When a file is created (properties only)" trigger is a polling trigger — it checks SharePoint at regular intervals. The minimum polling interval is 1 minute and this cannot be reduced. This is a platform-level limitation of how the SharePoint connector works in Power Automate, not something that can be configured away.

The SharePoint connector does not offer a webhook-based trigger for file creation that would give you instant notification. Webhook triggers in Power Automate respond to push events in real time, but SharePoint's file creation events in document libraries are not exposed as webhooks through the standard connector.

What you can do:

- Accept the 1-minute delay for a document numbering system this is usually acceptable since the user is unlikely to need the number within seconds of upload
- If the delay is a real problem, you could use SharePoint webhooks via a custom solution (Azure Function or custom connector) that listens to SharePoint change notifications and then calls a flow via HTTP trigger but this is a pro-code approach and goes beyond standard Power Automate

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/guidance/coding-guidelines/optimize-power-automate-triggers

Best regards,

Valantis

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David_MA 14,801 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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What is the reason that they delay matters and how does it impact your document numbering? You could enable concurrency control in the workflow to limit it to one run. This way, if other documents are created, they queue until the workflow finishes. Once the run finishes, the next item in the queue will process. Therefore, this should be a workflow that doesn't contain any pauses. It will just do whatever is needed for your document numbering scheme.

If you have other actions that require delays in the workflow, such as an approval, put those steps in a separate workflow.

Are you aware that SharePoint has its own unique ID for every file created.

This is like a primary key in a database. It starts at 1 and increments by 1 for every file created. If a file is deleted, it does not affect the ID of the next file created, it will always be a unique number.

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