Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!! How Can I Do This?

[Windows Central Question]

Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!!

I have uploaded around 100GB of data to OneDrive and it's not until recently that I realised that was the reason my free hard drive space was shrinking! *duh*

OneDrive is integrated into my File Explorer and I thought once I moved something to there it just went to the cloud. I now realise this isn't the case and don't have very much hard disk space left. I have mapped OneDrive to a Network Drive so that I can access that and changed my registry editor so that the OneDrive folder is no longer in my explorer but it is still taking up the space. How can I delete the local copies of the data without deleting them from OneDrive as they are now only in the OneDrive folder??

I know it's Christmas but please help if you can this is so annoying.

Thank you and Merry Christmas!!

 

[Rugish Dapeca]

Re: Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!!

You will want to tell OneDrive not to sync folders on your HD. Once unselected, it will only keep a copy in the cloud, and not mirror it to your hard drive.

 

[Steve Adams]

Can you please provide some direction how to do this? It has loaded everything to my drive on my surface 3 and taken up a lot of space for no reason. Thanks.

 

[grantpwarren]

Re: Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!!

Right click the Onedrive icon in the notification area.

 

[Steve Adams]

ok....thanks.

 

[Steve Adams]

Re: Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!!

Sorry, I am talking about on my surface. Using w10. I don't really understand where you are trying to direct me. Sorry for my confusion!

 

[ajayden]

Re: Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!!

Sorry, I am talking about on my surface. Using w10. I don't really understand where you are trying to direct me. Sorry for my confusion!

I have attached a picture below. One the bottom right side (near to battery icon) of the picture, you will see a popup with the onedrive icon. Right click on that.

 

[Steve Adams]

Ok, when I disable this, I can still acess my files using the onedrive app right? also, can I then delete these off my surface?

I guess I select unlink? I still want to save all my files from this device to one drive, but I do not want to save my one drive to this devices hard drive.

 

[etphoto]

Ok, when I disable this, I can still acess my files using the onedrive app right? also, can I then delete these off my surface?

I guess I select unlink? I still want to save all my files from this device to one drive, but I do not want to save my one drive to this devices hard drive.

No. Once you stop syncing the files you'll need to go to the web (onedrive.live.com) to either upload more files to a non synced folder or download a file you are looking for.

This is because someone at Microsoft got kicked in the head by a horse or something and decided to rid Windows 10 of placeholders. Because of this I pay for cloud service somewhere else to upload my images rather than get the free space offered by onedrive. I also went back to the old fashion external hard drive route. Its sad 80s technology (external hard drives) works better than Microsoft's 2016 cloud service.

Sent from my Surface 3

 

[Steve Adams]

Ok, so if I sync, All my files on onedrive will be downloaded to my surface storage? that's dumb.

 

[anthonyng]

Ok, so if I sync, All my files on onedrive will be downloaded to my surface storage? that's dumb.

Yes in windows 10 now... Not like this in 8.1.... but I thought I read that placeholders might be coming back or at least bring reconsidered.

I hope it comes back... Like I like how photos app accesses online pictures to show them to you, but you don't have to download them in full. I like photos app for that, all my devices pictures visible in any device

 

[dakranii]

Ok, so if I sync, All my files on onedrive will be downloaded to my surface storage? that's dumb.

Yes, it's incredibly dumb. Removing placeholders and the OneDrive app in Windows 10 makes OneDrive much less handy.

 

[Steve Adams]

Totally, I am going to have to stop sync'ing my one drive to my surface. I have 20gb taken up with onedrive stuff now on my surface 64gb.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Ok, so if I sync, All my files on onedrive will be downloaded to my surface storage? that's dumb.

Sync the folders you need and not everything. I have 350GB in my onedrive account but I have only synced one folder of 20MB on my surface 3. Whenever I need a particular file I head over to the website and get it, simple.

placeholders was confusing for a lot of people hence the decision to remove it.

 

[dakranii]

Re: Help Please! Stop OneDrive Using Space On My Hard Disk!!

Placeholder confusion is fine. But I still don't understand why the app went away. Much better with the touch interface than the website.

 

[etphoto]

placeholders was confusing for a lot of people hence the decision to remove it.

When the doorknob was introduced I'm sure there were some that found it confusing. However, they eventually got it and now you can find doorknobs everywhere. It was stupid of MS to rid Windows 10 of placeholders. It makes their OWN Surface line of products useless because of the tiny hard drives.




Sent from my Surface 3

 

[kcbudyzr]

I have the same issue, not only with Windows 10, but Mac also. Does anyone know how I would turn off a folder's sync on a Mac?

 

[dzigner]

Hello
I know this is an old thread, but I need help.
I have the onedrive storage, and I keep my OneNote Notebooks on it. But it is downloading on my laptop. I dont want that. I just want the updated files kept on the onedrive. When I remove these files from the laptop, or unsync the folders, everything gets deleted in OneDrive also. How do I do that the notes get updated when I use them, but they are just kept online and not on my PC? Please help, as I just had to restore the note files from the recyclebin on onedrive.
thanks

 

[kyleriley]

Hey dzinger, this drove me nuts for a long time. What is the point of cloud storage if it takes up your hard drive? Not to mention that OneDrive is constantly "syncing" and using up precious disk space and computing power. Luckily after literal days spent on this problem. I managed to put together a somewhat reasonable solution.

1. Using Internet Explorer (actually), go to https://login.microsoftonline.com; enter your user name and password and select keep me signed in.

2. Click on the square in the upper left hand corner and select OneDrive from the drop down menu.

3. Once in OneDrive, select internet options from the upper left hand corner. Under the Security tab add the URL to the trusted sites list. If there is an option to choose a security level (depending on which version of explorer you are using) set it to lowest for trusted sites.

5. Click return to classic OneDrive in the lower left hand corner.

6. Click into the folder that you wish to have available on your PC (or tablet, or whatever).

7. In the OneDrive settings menu make sure that the ribbon is turned to on.

8. On the ribbon, under the Library heading click on open with explorer. Leave the resulting window open.

9. Open a new explorer window and right click on This PC on the left hand side. Select Map Network Drive.

10. Select the option (should be at the bottom of the pop-up box): Connect to a Website that you can use to store your documents and pictures. When given the option, select: Choose a custom network location. When you are asked to enter the network address use the address contained in the window you opened from OneDrive.

11. Bada Bing! You can now use OneDrive as an actual cloud service. The files are not located on your computer; you can cut and paste files from your computer onto OneDrive and visa versa and they will be located on one or the other, not both. If you delete a file from the OneDrive folder it deletes the file stored online. There will be no syncing and no storage use on your device.

The folder will be a network path, but I like to create a shortcut to my desktop. This can be a bit tetchy. If your folder is not opening: try logging in to office 365 and navigating to the folder in OneDrive. It should ask you to verify that you trust this site. If not, do the security process described above again.

 

[MaryJane2018]

It is so complicated. Like most people I have onedrive to save space on my PC. I have home videos going back 30 years on there - so a lot of data.
I have been trying to upload some recent stuff and it just will not go as it hangs.

Microsoft have said today that if you want to upload more than 15GB you can't easily. Why do not they tell people that before they sign up and pay?
So they say add onedrive desktop app. I don't think the downsides are going to be worth it as I certainiliy don't want all the stuff on the cloud storage which is there to save space on my PC coming back to my PC. I like things separated and not synced either.
So what a mess. No easy quick way to use my cloud storage. I could only upload last years 2017 photo files by doing it bit by bit which took ages. To do other material which is much bigger I just don't have the time. Also my one drive is already half full. What is the use of that and if I want more storage I cannot just buy it. I have to buy and take other products and stuff I don't want.... I should have kept the VHS tapes after all!