Dealing with Salesforce Maximum Debug Log Size

When working with Apex code that iterates a lot, you may encounter a truncated log. The error looks like this:

MAXIMUM DEBUG LOG SIZE REACHED

At the time of writing, the maximum allowed size for a debug log is 2 MB.

The default monitoring level for Apex code includes a lot of clutter you usually don’t need (like METHOD_ENTRY, METHOD_EXIT). By common practice, you should put a log filter on the monitored user, or on the classes involved in the transaction by using an override flag.

Unfortunately, the platform does not allow fine‑tuning of log levels. The first filter is specific to your monitoring sessions; the second affects every process or user. My advice: remove any class‑level filter override after use.

One useful approach to extract information from a saturated result is lowering the log level. Instead of the default DEBUG, set the Apex code filter level to INFO and then write your debug messages into this less cluttered level:

System.debug(LoggingLevel.INFO, myVar);

This way, you can still capture what’s important while avoiding the 2 MB log limit.

Note (2025): This article is from 2013. Salesforce log size limits and debugging practices may have changed. Check the Salesforce Developer Documentation for up‑to‑date information.