SOLVED OneDrive is a space hog

[kbennett65]

I have an HP computer purchased about a year ago with a dual drive configuration. There is a C drive [Windows] with 118 GB that is 95% full! A huge chunk of that is taken up by OneDrive. My D [data] drive in the meantime is 914 GB with 903 GB free. Can I move my OneDrive to the D drive and still access everything on it the same as I do now?

 

[Wolfie]

Hi,

are you using OneDrive?, if not you can delete it but un-link it first!.

Otherwise, see below for further instructions.

Change the location of your OneDrive folder - Office Support (microsoft.com)

 

[kbennett65]

That's the thing. I use it, a lot. I have an Office 365 subscription so I get a ton of storage. It's mostly my photos taking up so much space on my C drive. I have a Lenovo smart display and a Stardock computer home screen that both pull photos from my OneDrive. What ends up happening is it doesn't matter how many times I specify cloud storage as soon as either display pulls a photo it makes the sync to computer active. Just my photo files that keep syncing to the C drive are currently at 38+ GB and will continue to grow since I have my phone set to sync to One Drive also as that's the easiest way for me to access the pictures I take on my phone other places.

 

[bassfisher6522]

That's exactly why OneDrive is so convoluted and refuse to use it. It hijacks everything......that's because it tied to the OS. Where as an actual cloud storage isn't and can be controlled in the settings with out reverting back to it's defaults like OneDrive.

More power to those that use it.


That said.....you can still remove/uninstall OneDrive from the system and use your browser to access OneDrive using the web. Every thing should still sync.

 

[PA-WOODCHUCK]

I went to settings and uninstalled it. Reboot, reinstall, click on "cloud" located lower right in taskbar and setup and pick your location which was D: on my PC. I only use one-drive to transfer my photos/files from smartphone to PC and then move as needed.

 

[Wolfie]

That's the thing. I use it, a lot

And did you change the path according to the link I posted above?.

 

[kbennett65]

Thanks for the advice! It sounds like no doubt the best move is changing the the path of One Drive to that wide open space on the D drive. I'll give it a shot. I won't start manually moving photo's yet though. I'm going to see if I can change the settings in the displays that pull photos from my OneDrive to point them to the new location. I'll let you all know in a day or two if that works. I'm working the next two days and probably won't mess around with it until my next day off.

 

[PA-WOODCHUCK]

Thanks for the advice! It sounds like no doubt the best move is changing the the path of One Drive to that wide open space on the D drive. I'll give it a shot. I won't start manually moving photo's yet though. I'm going to see if I can change the settings in the displays that pull photos from my OneDrive to point them to the new location. I'll let you all know in a day or two if that works. I'm working the next two days and probably won't mess around with it until my next day off.

Could always back the photos/files to external HD just incase the move goes bad?

 

[Grizzly]

It is always better to have your own files on a separate drive/partition other than C: . Myself I have all my folders moved to drive D: (Music, documents, videos, pictures etc) from which I also run Onedrive (which contains only files I do not care to looses anyway).
Regular backups of my files to several external HDD's is a must (I have lost too many files before).

 

[kbennett65]

Could always back the photos/files to external HD just incase the move goes bad?

Good idea. I have an external drive with plenty of space. Though honestly between OneDrive, Google Photos, Amazon Photos and my Samsung Gallery I already have pictures stored on multiple cloud servers.

 

[Grizzly]

Good idea. I have an external drive with plenty of space. Though honestly between OneDrive, Google Photos, Amazon Photos and my Samsung Gallery I already have pictures stored on multiple cloud servers.

The only problem I have with cloud services that I do not know who has access to my files and where the servers are.

 

[davehc]

It is always better to have your own files on a separate drive/partition other than C: . Myself I have all my folders moved to drive D: (Music, documents, videos, pictures etc) from which I also run Onedrive (which contains only files I do not care to looses anyway).
Regular backups of my files to several external HDD's is a must (I have lost too many files before).

Yep. Call it the old fashioned way, if you will, but it works for me. A small amount of extra work involved, but I have a better idea of who is in charge!