OneDrive Free Up Space Grayed Out

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I have about 400GB of videos on my laptop.  They are in a folder on the root of C in about 20 subfolders.  I just started moving them one subfolder at a time to a new folder in my OneDrive Documents folder (C:\Users\Jim\OneDrive – CER, LLC\Documents\Videos).  After I copied the subfolder into the OneDrive location, I selected “Free Up Space” on the subfolder I just moved.  I wait for the sync to OneDrive to complete.  The option “Free Up Space” is grayed out, BUT…these newly moved folders (with Free Up Space grayed out) are still taking up hard drive space on my SSD.

Just to be clear, I’ll try rewording this problem again.  I have a folder with 20GB on it that is located on my root C.  I “move” it into my OneDrive sync folder.  I select “Free Up Space” on this newly created folder which is residing in my OneDrive sync folder.  Wait until the OneDrive Sync completes.  This newly created folder has the blue cloud icon next to it showing it should only be available online.  HOWEVER, this newly created folder is using 20GB on my SSD, that is to say, the “Free Up Space” doesn’t appear to be working.

Clever ideas anyone?

Win 10 Pro.  1909.  Latest June updates applied.

Thanks,

Jim

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Moving files / directories just changes the link, no data is moved / consumed / released.

OneDrive sync leaves files on your hard disk and copies it to the cloud so no space will be freed up on your disk.

If you want to free up space, get a 1TB USB disk, connect it to your system and copy the videos to it, then delete from your hard disk.
You can even backup the laptop at the same time.

cheers, Paul

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[access-mdb]

I’ve just looked at one of my OneDrive folders. Clicking properties on it and it says size: 66.4Mb, but size on disk: 2.20Mb. So I only have 2.2Mb actually on my disk rather than the 66.4Mb total. Is that what you’re seeing?

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by access-mdb.

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Hmmm..  I guess I’m seeing the same thing.  The folder says

Size:  44 GB

Size on disk:  44 K

So, maybe it -is- working??

Jim

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I see the same.

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Paul is correct. The only content you can save to OneDrive without taking up space on your local drive is to create an Excel, PowerPoint, Word, etc. document and have AutoSave turned on in the particular program(s). Otherwise, OneDrive acts as a backup solution and you have no local drive real estate saved or cleared. If you want the files off your local drive, your only option is to invest in an external drive and port the files to it via cut & paste. External drives have become very affordable now – even for 2 Tb+ drives. By doing a cut from you local drive & paste to your external drive, you will clear the real estate on your local drive.

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I’ve just used the ‘Free up space’ facility on file explorer and it freed up space. And the ‘Free up space’ link is now greyed out on those two folders. So I’m not sure you (or Paul) are correct.

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Then I don’t understand the purpose and functionality of “Free Up Space”.  And as I read what MS says about the feature, it definitely says the file will be online only and NOT take up space on your drive.

 

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Perhaps I should have been clearer. I compared properties before and after using ‘free up space’. The size parameter stayed the same, the ‘size on disk’ parameter reduced. If you’ve freed up space, you can’t free up more, so the option is greyed out. This is because the files are online and only a placeholder is on your disk.

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I wasn’t aware of the “free up space” option.
That option will only be available once all 400GB has been copied to OD, which may take days or weeks, depending on your upload speed.

cheers, Paul

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I’m having this issue with the MS techs right now because they have zero reading comprehension.  The first time you copy stuff over to OneDrive, the “Free Up Space” function will work.  It will then be grayed out because all of the files are residing in the cloud.  This is usually the limit of the techs knowledge.

My problem is that I then add additional files to the existing folders.  All of the new files are copied from my X drive into the OneDrive folder as “Keep on this machine.”  Since they are tagged as keep, the free up space function remains grayed out.  Thus, I cannot delete these files from my hard drive using Free Up Space.

The techs can only offer two solutions, both stupid.  The first is to right click on each file and select Free Up Space.  Since I have 50,000 plus files stored in multi-level folders with 1,000 new files added at a time, this is not practical.  The other “solution” is to click the make files available offline function.  This downloads all 50,000 plus files into my One Drive folder and THEN I can use Free Up Space to delete those files from my hard drive.

That’s their solution!  Download all your files from the cloud onto a hard drive with limited space so you can then delete the files you didn’t want so you can free up space.  Am I the only one who can see that what’s needed is a simple program to scan the file database and set the bit from always store on this device to store online?  With that one flip the Free Up Space function can then be used to remove the files from the OneDrive folder.

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A quick update.  The problem is cause by Microsoft setting the P file attribute when I copy files to my X: drive.  My X: drive is encrypted with BitLocker so that may be the cause.  When i copy the files from my X: drive to my C:/OneDrive folder, the P attribute is assumed to mean that i want to keep these files local.  Thus, Free Up Space does not work because the new files have the P attribute set.  People over at Microsoft have zero clue what I am taking about even when I send them step by step examples showing the setting of the P attribute when I copy into my X: drive.

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anonymous wrote:

The problem is cause by Microsoft setting the P file attribute

For those who don’t know, the P attribute means Pinned.
If a file has the pinned attribute this tells a sync program to copy the file locally. Unpinned means “leave in the cloud”.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/files-on-demand-windows

cheers, Paul

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