OneDrive Taking Up Space on C Drive | 3 Ways And 2 Tips

Why is OneDrive Taking Up Space on My C Drive?

“My OneDrive is taking up a lot of space on my C drive. I thought OneDrive was in the Cloud. Did I set it up wrong? Any tips or ideas on how to save space on my C drive when I am using OneDrive? Thanks!”

Many users complained that the OneDrive taking up too much space on Android phone, iPhone/iPad, or computer, and does OneDrive taking up hard drive space actually? You will find answers in the following text.

Causes to OneDrive Taking Up Space on C Drive

Actually, there are some reasons for OneDrive taking up space on hard drive, just take it for references:

• Disabled Files On-Demand.

• You downloaded all files and folders to your computer, to be precise, it’s the C drive(C:\Users\ailsa\OneDrive).

• OneDrive cached files.

To free up space for OneDrive on your hard drive, please follow the below steps to solve this problem.

3 Ways to fix OneDrive Taking Up Space on Computer

Way 1. Enable OneDrive Files On-Demand

Like Dropbox Smart Sync, OneDrive Files On-Demand enables you to access all your files in OneDrive without downloading them to your computer, so it will not use the hard drive space on your computer. All your OneDrive files and folders will be downloaded to your computer, usually the C drive, if you disable the Files On-Demand features.

Hence, to free up space on your hard drive, please enable Files On-Demand features as follows:

1. Please install your OneDrive sync app, and sign in to your OneDrive account.

2. Tap the OneDrive icon on the system tray, and select Help & Settings, then select Settings.

3. Under the Settings tab, tick the option “Save space on hard drive and download files as you use them” under the Files On-Demand section.

4. Then, OneDrive will restart automatically and right-click the OneDrive folder, and choose Free up space from the dropdown menu to remove the downloaded files and folders.

And all the files and folder status will become hollow cloud icon (), except the desktop folder.

To make it clear, you could right-click the OneDrive folder, select Properties, check the value on Size on Disk under the General tab before freeing up space and after freeing up space to see how much space OneDrive saves.

Way 2. Deselect the Folders to Remove Folders from Your C Drive

By default, OneDrive makes all OneDrive files available on your computer. To free up space on your hard drive, please deselect the folders or all of the folders to save space on your hard drive:

1. Tap the OneDrive icon on your Windows system tray, and select Help & Settings > Settings, press Choose folders button under Choose folders section in the Account tab.

2. Then unselect the Make all files available option, or uncheck all the folders in the list, and press OK.

After that, all the files will be removed from the C drive, and free up space on your computer hard drive.

The process will empty your OneDrive folder except for the Personal Vault folder.

Way 3. Use Windows Storage Sense to Manage Disk Space

Windows Storage Sense is a silent assistant only available on Windows 10, 1809 version, and only works on C drive, which works with OneDrive to automatically free up space by making locally available files that you aren't using anymore online-only again. Online-only files stay safe in OneDrive and are visible on your device. When connected to the Internet, you can continue using your online-only files just like any other file.

Please turn on Windows Storage Sense as follows:

1. Start > Settings > System > Storage > Turn on Storage Sense.

2. Click Configure Storage Sense or run it now to set up, select Every day, Every week, Every month, or During low free disk space from the context menu of Run Storage Sense.

Or click the Clean now button under Free up space now.

Bonus Tips for OneDrive Taking Up Space on C Drive

If OneDrive still taking up space on C drive sooner or later, you could backup OneDrive to another directly, even different clouds, like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc, then free up space as you like. And the free cloud backup service CBackup would do you a big favor.

Tip 1. Backup OneDrive to Another Cloud Easily

Here are the steps to transfer OneDrive to Google Drive with CBackup:

1. Please create a new CBackup account, and sign in to CBackup desktop app.

Download CBackup

Win 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP

Secure Download

2. Tap My Storage > Add Cloud, then select OneDrive > Add. Then follow the steps to authorize CBackup to access your OneDrive files and folders. Set up other settings for OneDrive, like Display Name, Storage Path, etc.

3. Repeat the above process to add Google Drive to CBackup.

4. Tap Backup Tasks > New Task.

5. Then customize the Task Name, and then click Add Source to select OneDrive, click Add Destination > Single Cloud > Google Drive.

6. Then press Start Backup to transfer OneDrive files to Google Drive directly.

Tips: There are some useful features in Settings (on the bottom left) you could set up:

• Schedule Backup allows you transfer OneDrive to Google Drive regularly, like one time only, daily, weekly, or monthly.

• Email notification sends you the result of the backup task in email, success or failure.

• Version Cleanup helps you to keep all the file versions or delete the versions you specified to free up space.

• File Filter has the ability to include or exclude the file types you want or don’t want to backup. It will backup all files if you ignore them.

Tip 2. Use CBackup to backup files to OneDrive automatically

If you are stuck in the OneDrive taking up space on C drive, you could uninstall OneDrive and use CBackup to backup files to OneDrive easily. Below steps are listed below to backup files to OneDrive.

1. Please sign in to CBackup desktop app, and Tap New Task under the Backup Tasks tab on the left.

2. Rename the Task Name if required, then click Add Source to select the local files you want to backup to OneDrive, then click Add Destination > Single Cloud > Next > OneDrive > OK.

3. Press the Start Backup button to backup files to OneDrive safely.

Except for cloud to cloud backup and PC cloud backup, CBackup provides you the following conveniences:

• Backup files to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, CBackup Cloud, etc.

• Increase cloud storage for free if you don’t have enough cloud storage on Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.

• Free 10GB cloud storage of CBackup Cloud, which stores more of your critical data.

The End

It depends on your settings whether OneDrive taking up space on C drive. If you disable Files On-Demand, Make all files available, OneDrive will take up space on your hard drive. How to fix OneDrive taking up space on Windows computers? Here are 3 easy ways for you to fix it, and 1 tip for you to transfer OneDrive to another to release cloud storage easily.