One drive online files take space on Macbook

Hi Mirjam,

Thanks for posting here.

To confirm, you have enabledFiles On-Demand feature and most of the files in OneDrive have the first status(Online-only), right?

We have tested on Catalina, and the result matches your description. I think it is an identification issue between Mac Storage calculation and Files On-Demand. It most likely counts 172.298.589.945 bytes(172GB) into the whole storage, but if you right-click those files->info, it will show 0 bytes on disk, so we don't need to worry that the storage is being exceeded.

However, given the situation, you could also click the OneDrive icon on the upper-right corner and click more, then click Send Feedback and let OneDrive product team notice this behaviour, as Microsoft is committed to continuously improving your experience with our products.

If I misunderstand your meaning or you have any experience to share, please feel free to post back.

Have a nice day: )

Best regards,

Oliver

Hi Mirjam,

Thanks for posting here.

To confirm, you have enabledFiles On-Demand feature and most of the files in OneDrive have the first status(Online-only), right?

We have tested on Catalina, and the result matches your description. I think it is an identification issue between Mac Storage calculation and Files On-Demand. It most likely counts 172.298.589.945 bytes(172GB) into the whole storage, but if you right-click those files->info, it will show 0 bytes on disk, so we don't need to worry that the storage is being exceeded.

However, given the situation, you could also click the OneDrive icon on the upper-right corner and click more, then click Send Feedback and let OneDrive product team notice this behaviour, as Microsoft is committed to continuously improving your experience with our products.

If I misunderstand your meaning or you have any experience to share, please feel free to post back.

Have a nice day: )

Best regards,

Oliver

Dear Oliver,

thanks for your reply. But I am not sure if this helps me.

I have indeed most of my files as online-only files (similar to the first status in your screenshot), yet my Mac storage is really full with documents. And I have no other documents stored on it. Also if I click in the Mac Storage screen on Manage, I see documents on my Mac that should be online stored only in One Drive.

I am still on Mojave as I cannot upgrade my Mac to Catalina due to lack of storage! 

I am happy to share some screenshots if this helps - but prefer to do that in a private chat as this contains personal data.

Please advise,

thanks

Mirjam

Hi Mirjam,

Thanks for the updates. We did some tests on that but without luck, we could not reproduce the issue you met. Could you tell me how much storage taken by OneDrive is shown in the Manage Storage dialog if you click File Browser? ( Apple->About this Mac->Storage->Manage->File Browser)

I have initiated PM invitation for you, and you could share some screenshots via this link.

Since you mentioned you need to keep some files on the device, we will help you narrow down the issue cause first, before try unlinking OneDrive or Free up storage space.

We appreciate your understanding and patience: )

Best regards,

Oliver

Hi Mirjam,

Thanks for the updates. We did some tests on that but without luck, we could not reproduce the issue you met. Could you tell me how much storage taken by OneDrive is shown in the Manage Storage dialog if you click File Browser? ( Apple->About this Mac->Storage->Manage->File Browser)

I have initiated PM invitation for you, and you could share some screenshots via this link.

Since you mentioned you need to keep some files on the device, we will help you narrow down the issue cause first, before try unlinking OneDrive or Free up storage space.

We appreciate your understanding and patience: )

Best regards,

Oliver

Hi Oliver,

thanks for looking into this. I will send the screenshots through the private link.

The file browser as above reflects 172,3 GB for One Drive. I will include this in a screenshot.

Thanks

Mirjam

Hi Mirjam,

Thanks for the updates, and we have received the info you provided.

1. Those folders having online-only status doesn't mean all files in that folder have the same status, otherwise, it won't display 38.7 GB on the disk.
2. Files in OneDrive are 172GB, more than 121GB(the total capacity of Macintosh HD), so I think those files on-demand are not likely to take up local storage.

We did a test on Mojave with a OneDrive account that contains 20GB files, after signing in OneDrive on that Mac, the total available storage didn't change, although it displays 20GB when we navigate to Manage storage page, as we discussed before, it's an identification issue of Mac Finder.

Anyway, to help determine the cause of the problem, I suggest you select and right-click the OneDrive client folder->Free up space. Then all files in the folder would be stored online-only, and this is also to save the space for upgrading MacOS.

If files with online-only icon still take up the local storage, we could only suggest you unlink OneDrive(click OneDrive icon on the ribbon->More->Preferences->Account->Unlink ) then delete those files, after upgrading to Catalina, you could sign in OneDrive again.

Best regards,

Oliver