One drive online files take space on Macbook

Anonymous
2019-12-16T05:50:07+00:00

I have One Drive installed on my MacBook.

When right-click on the One Drive icon in my Finder and click “get info” it says under size:

172.298.589.945 bytes (39,5 GB on disk) for 57.162 items.

So the way I interpret this is that only 39,5 GB should take space on my Macbook disk. Which is in line with the documents I store offline on my mac (some pictures and music)

However, when I look at the actual disk space used (I click apple icon on home screen, click “about this mac” and then under Storage tab it shows me that my stored documents use 178,4GB. And with that my Mac storage is almost full.

I have no other documents on my Mac, I keep everything in One Drive or ICloud. Icloud is totally online, no files are offline. And One Drive I have only a few files offline.

So why does it seem to take all my storage nevertheless?

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-01-22T00:44:56+00:00

    Hello,

    I have spent the last hour or so reviewing the information on this thread. I have a 2019 Macbook Pro and have recently upgraded my iOS to Big Sur. I cannot figure out for the life of me how to keep my files online-only. I was wondering if anyone can be kind enough to assist me.

    Thanks so much,

    Andrea

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-01-22T09:16:32+00:00

    Hello,

    I have spent the last hour or so reviewing the information on this thread. I have a 2019 Macbook Pro and have recently upgraded my iOS to Big Sur. I cannot figure out for the life of me how to keep my files online-only. I was wondering if anyone can be kind enough to assist me.

    Thanks so much,

    Andrea

    Hi Andrea,

    Well, as you have by now read; a lot of users have had a technical problem for the past year or so, caused by a bug in OneDrive. For a couple of users and myself, these problems have been solved with the Big Sur update. I can give you instructions for how it *should* work. If it doesn't work, it may mean the bug is still plaguing your setup.

    I'll add screenshots to these instructions. Please note that my OneDrive is set to Dutch, I'll do my best to translate the settings to English (although my translation may differ a bit from the actual English-language version of OneDrive).

    To configure files on demand:

    Click on the OneDrive icon at the top of your screen, then Help & settings at the bottom of the pop-up and lastly Preferences in the menu that appears ('Voorkeuren' in the screenshot, the second option from above).

    In the preferences pane, turn Files on demand on.

    Now please note, that every time you open a file, you Mac will download the file at that time. If you go to your OneDrive-files in the Finder, you will see a status icon behind the file. It will either be a) synchronizing with the cloud, b) stored in the cloud only or c) downloaded to your Mac.

    In order to change the status of a file: in the Finder, secondary click on the file to open the contextual menu  (you can also select multiple or all of your files and folders at once). At the bottom of the menu, you'll find the options to a) share the file, b) Always keep the files on your device or c) Clear space.

    Select the latter to keep the file(s) in the cloud, but remove the downloaded version of if on your hard drive. You will need to do this from time to time to clear hard disk space.

    I hope this helps and that OneDrive is working correctly for you!

    Erik

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-01-27T13:57:50+00:00

    Hey Eric,

    Its a fellow dutch huy here.

    So i have this issue with some of my clients who use a Mac.

    I will clarify the exact steps i did:

    1. Unlink Onedrive
    2. Deleted the local files (which shouldnt be there anyway)
    3. Linked Onedrive again and made sure files on demand is turned on.

    End result:

    Files are still coming back and using local space.
    Ive tried the option to "Clear room" (ruimte vrijmaken) multiple times.
    Then i identified that the files came from Sharepoint which is linked in Onedrive.
    So i deleted the sync between Sharepoint and Onedrive and only used the option to make a shortcut to onedrive.

    But still these files will sync and take up local space.

    Any advice would be welcome.

    PS im not a Mac expert at all.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-05-03T19:46:07+00:00

    I have the same issue.

    I have One-Drive as part of a family subscription and so have 1TB, I have been moving files from my MAC external storage to my One Drive and its filled up my Mac.

    All the files seem to have gone to the OneDrive, but my mac's 1 TB is full and I am not able to do anything on the Mac as its all Full and CLEAR SPEACE has been selected multiple times, and the FileFinder is showing all the files and directory with a blue cloud icon (on the cloud) 

    Can you please help - I am IT and can not see why.

    On my windows machine, it works fine and shows all the files on the OneDrive( cloud) and Zero MB used on the local drive!

    Thanks

    NIck

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-05-04T20:41:27+00:00

    Hi Nick

    If you look at previous posts from both myself and others you will see some solutions. 

    But in short. 

    Unlink one drive and delete any left over files. 

    I then put the one drive folder on to an external drive. 

    Not ideal, but no other solution it seems until MS/Apple sort this out finally.

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