OneDrive will now remove offline files if they aren't accessed for a certain period

Reading time icon 2 min. read


Readers help support MSPoweruser. When you make a purchase using links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Tooltip Icon

Read the affiliate disclosure page to find out how can you help MSPoweruser effortlessly and without spending any money. Read more

Microsoft has been having plenty of issues with the Windows 10 October 2018 update but that doesn’t make the update bad to install. While Microsoft has shared an extensive list of new features that were added to October 2018 update, there are still some features which didn’t make it to the official blog post.

One of those features is the new automatic garbage collection for OneDrive. For those who don’t know, Garbage Collection is a form of automatic memory management technique used to clear out junk or files which are not accessed to manage the storage. Microsoft has been emphasizing on this for a long time now especially since Disk Cleanup tool will be removed soon. With the new addition to OneDrive, users can set a time limit after which the offline files will be removed. These files won’t actually be deleted from the OneDrive but will be made online-only.

If you don’t use a file but still want it on your PC then you can go to OneDrive folder and right-click on the file and select “Always keep on this device”. Do note that this feature is not actually enabled by default so if you want to use it then head to Settings>System>Storage and click on “Change how we free up space automatically” under Storage Sense. Once there, scroll down to the bottom and set the number of days under OneDrive. By default, it will be set to never but you can change the setting to the number of days after which you want Storage Sense to remove the offline copy of the file from the PC.

This feature would be really useful for users who download files on PC and forget to remove them after their work is done. Will you use this feature to remove files automatically? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Via: Windows United

More about the topics: microsoft, Microsoft OneDrive, windows 10, windows 1o october 2018 update