What is the maximum size of a collection ?

[NigelP]

Hi 

I want to load 15,000 records into a collection.  I know I might have to feed them in 500 (or 2000) at a time, but will PowerApps let me have such a size of collection ?

What is the maximum size of a collection ?

Thanks

NIgel

[v-monli-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @NigelP,

According to delegation documentation:

Collections stored in context variables don't require delegation. All of this data is already in memory, and the full PowerApps language can be applied.

The 500-2000 delegation record limit does not apply to collections, i.e. you can store as many records in a collection as you like.

Regards,

Mona

[Meneghino]

I have stored up to 10,000 records in a collection without any issues, and I am sure more can be stored.  I think the limit is the ability of your device to handle the memory.

Depending on where the data is stored, there may be better ways to load up your collection than repeated downloanding of 2,000 records (the maximum currently available through the built-in functions).  SQL Server or Azure SQL Database are particularly flexible.

Where is your data?

[DavesTechTips]

Hi everyone.

We have been able to store over 10 000 records in a collection and the memory and performance was quite good actually. The only time that it started hitting the memory hard is when you display that collection in a gallery, and scroll through all the data. It actually feels like there is a staging system in PowerApps that stores the collection info and that the entire collection is not stored in the browser (feels very much like Cosmos or Mongo). The browser is only hit with the info when you start displaying the data from the collection.

From our tests, it is also better to use addcolums to join info from tables into a collection, than to do lookups in the gallery to 'join' data.

[NigelP]

Hi @Meneghino

The data is currentl store in SHarePoint Online lists.

Regards

Nigel

[Meneghino]

Sorry, can't think of how to get >2000 rows in one go from SharePoint lists.

[DavesTechTips]

Does it have to be in SharePoint? How important is it to get all the data in one go and not in increments of 2000? We have successfully stored data directly in Mongo from PowerApps before, in which case you can get quite a lot of data in and out at great speeds. You can also do some fancy footwork with Flow to get the data for you, it all depends on how much data you need to get, how quick you want it and what you are willing to let go of in terms of application simplicity

[NigelP]

Agreed - but I can repeatedly read list items from a list (2,000 at a time) but up to how many ?

How much memory does PowerApps reserve for collections ?

Collections are great for filtering so I may only bring back onto the screen a much smaller number of items.

Regards

Nigel

[takolota]

If anyone is revisiting this thread there is an alternative workaround to SP delegation limits that shouldn’t require loading the entire dataset to the app each time: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Community-App-Samples/Large-SP-List-Delegation-Workaround-App/m-...