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
    2020-05-22T16:34:10+00:00

    Hi,

    I just solved the problem in a different way.

    I had similar issues, specifically out of all the folders in the 'one-drive' root, I only had one subfolder of 200MB synced. However, the root folder took up 17GB. I didn't find any reason for this, but even though I copied the files inside the drive folder normaly and then freed space for all except that folder by selecting them (multiple selection and clicking free-up space), it kept them on disk and set only the cloud icon.

    I now selected all the folders in root and did free-up space again. So far 13GB have been freed and counting. 

    Seems like a bug in the "Free up space' routine.

    Best,

    Florian

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-22T17:33:58+00:00

    Hi,

    I just solved the problem in a different way.

    I had similar issues, specifically out of all the folders in the 'one-drive' root, I only had one subfolder of 200MB synced. However, the root folder took up 17GB. I didn't find any reason for this, but even though I copied the files inside the drive folder normaly and then freed space for all except that folder by selecting them (multiple selection and clicking free-up space), it kept them on disk and set only the cloud icon.

    I now selected all the folders in root and did free-up space again. So far 13GB have been freed and counting. 

    Seems like a bug in the "Free up space' routine.

    Best,

    Florian

    Aha! Great info, thanks. So basically the folder themselves take up space too.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-05-27T17:34:01+00:00

    could you expand on this? what exactly did you do? I have done what you said but it still shows all the files taking up space on my Mac. I have used the 'free-up space' on all my folders, so nothing should be on my harddrive but it is still there.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-05-27T18:06:56+00:00

    could you expand on this? what exactly did you do? I have done what you said but it still shows all the files taking up space on my Mac. I have used the 'free-up space' on all my folders, so nothing should be on my harddrive but it is still there.

    Not sure who you're asking, Florian or me? Here is what I did (because mine was more a Mac problem instead of a OneDrive problem):

    1. Back up all your data
    2. Start your Mac in recovery/safe mode (hold shift during startup until Apple logo appears)
    3. Go to Disk Utilities app, click on the Macintosh HD - Data volume, and erase it

    That did the trick for me. I had tried to install Catalina earlier, and that had created the Macintosh HD - Data volume, and somehow marked it as almost full. Deleting that volume (which I didn't need as I don't in fact have Catalina) did the trick. Not sure if it would work if you actually DO have Catalina installed and running. I have read that Catalina is a behemoth that takes up a lot of stories, so I don't think I'll be installing it anytime soon.

    Please also note that you HAVE to back up your data first, as some of your data will reside on that volume.

    Here is where I found the instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-05-27T20:47:13+00:00

    Sine,

    Thanks for the reply! Sorry I wasn't clear, I was asking Florian. I have a new 2020 MacBook Air which came with Catalina pre-installed. I'm hesitant to delete/mess with the Macintosh HD - Data volume since I believe this is a problem with OneDrive and not Apple.

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