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Storage full on PC filled with Sharepoint files
Help needed!
My PC has ground to a halt because of the files from Sharepoint at work is saved to my PC. How do I stop the files being saved locally and free up many many Gb of space again??
I know it will be a simply solution but it's driving me insane!
Thanks!
mrbellybell Hello,
I believe that this is happening because of OneDrive sync, from SharePoint Online to your local machine.
If you are using Windows 10, please look at the bottom right corner of your taskbar and see if you can find the OneDrive logo. Right click on it and select settings. On the tab "Account", you should be able to see how much data you have synced and be able to disable the sync.
Yours sincerely,
Aref Halmstrand
mrbellybell Hi - this functionality exists in the OneDrive sync client, it's called 'Files on Demand'. What is does is keep a 'ghost' copy of the file on your local machine and syncs it with the SharePoint version. Until you open the file it will not be downloaded.
To activate it:
- Click the OneDrive cloud icon in the taskbar
- Go to 'Help & Settings' > 'Settings'
- On the 'Settings' tab of the box that appears, ensure the tickbox 'Files on demand' is ticked
- Done!
If you want to remove files that have downloaded to your PC, open the location in File Explorer, right click on the file/folder you wish to remove and choose 'Free up space'. This will remove the file back to your SharePoint location whilst keeping the ghost copy on your device.
Check out this link for more info Save disk space with OneDrive Files On-Demand for Windows 10 - … (microsoft.com)
Why do microsoft call it a shortcut when it takes up disk space? A shortcut is 1k but a sharepoint shortcut can be hundreds of GBs.... its bizarre
It will take up your disk space, only if you are downloading local copies of all files in library. If your sync is setup with 'Files on demand' feature turned on, it will not take much space in your local disk.
mrbellybell Hello,
I believe that this is happening because of OneDrive sync, from SharePoint Online to your local machine.
If you are using Windows 10, please look at the bottom right corner of your taskbar and see if you can find the OneDrive logo. Right click on it and select settings. On the tab "Account", you should be able to see how much data you have synced and be able to disable the sync.
Yours sincerely,
Aref Halmstrand- Thanks so much for the quick response - much appreciated!
Will disabling the sync remove the already saved files?
Also, will I still be able to see which files I have and in which folder, even if they are not saved on my local drive? Ideally, I’d like a ‘ghost’ (not sure what to call it!) file of the actual file so when I want it, it will download it. I thought I had this function already setup, but with 125Gb of files saved, I assume not!
Thanks again- You are very welcome. Please mark it as best reply for the specific solution.
What is the reason for having the files available locally? Microsoft have updated with a new function in the document library to get a quick link to the specific library. Could that be possible to use ?
Yours sincerely,
Aref Halmstrand
- What operating system are you using?
- Windows 10
- I’m getting Safari can’t find the server “ddvbb-my.sharepoint.com” error. I can access to all my file. Pls advice what can I do?
