How To Sync Folders With OneDrive's On-Demand To Save Space?

When you synch folders with OneDrive and On-Demand Sync, only new and changed files will be uploaded. That's pretty cool. But what happens to old, deleted files that are left behind on your computer? This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to sync folders with OneDrive's On-Demand Sync in order to free up space on your desktop and OneDrive account.

OneDrive Files On-Demand is convenient since all your files can be accessed in OneDrive without needing to download them all and occupy storage space on your hard drive. When Files On-Demand is turned on, all your files in OneDrive will be seen in your File Explorer, and you will get additional details about each file.

If some files are newly created online or on a different device, they will be seen as online-only files. This means that they don’t take storage space on the device you are using.

Here are some benefits of having files on demand

1. Because your files are online, they don’t take up any storage space at all. This means that you must have more space for other files that you wish to store on your device.
2. Your files and folders can be set so that they will always be locally available on your device.
3. You will be updated with important information for each file. You will know if the files are edited or if they are shared.
4. You can see thumbnails of more than 300 various file types even if you don’t have an application required to open it.

You will see these icons with OneDrive Files On-Demand turned on.

This icon indicates that the file is only available when you are online. This means that files with this icon do not take up space on your storage device. However, you cannot open these files when you are not connected to the internet.

An online-only file will be downloaded when you open it. When it is downloaded, this icon will show, indicating that this file is now locally available. These kinds of files can be opened even when you are not connected to the internet. You can save space by right-clicking on these files and selecting Free up space this will revert them to online-only files.

These files are marked as Always keep on your device. They are available all the time, even without the internet. The downside is that they take up storage space.

Turning Files On-Demand on

The Files On-Demand feature works with almost all the apps that you are using today. This includes all the desktop applications of Windows and all the apps available on the Windows Store.

More importantly, Files On-Demand will work on every personal file or work file from OneDrive, Microsoft 365, Sharepoint, and Sharepoint Server 2019.

1. To start, make sure that you already have an OneDrive account.
2. Sign in to your OneDrive account on your device
3. On the lower right portion of your desktop, click the OneDrive Icon. There are two icons there, the white one and the blue one. You can choose either of them as they will open OneDrive just the same.
4. In some devices, you might need to click the Show hidden icons button on the lower right portion of your desktop as the OneDrive icon might be there.
5. If the OneDrive icon is still not there, it indicates that OneDrive is not running. In this case, go to the start menu and on the search bar, type OneDrive.
6. When the results show up, find OneDrive and click on it to open it.
7. Once OneDrive is open, go to the lower-right portion of the application and look for Help & Settings. Click on it.
   
8. When the mini menu appears, locate Settings and left-click it. It is usually located as the second option of the mini menu.
9. When the Settings tab appears, select the option that indicates Save space and download files as you use them. Simply tick the checkbox next to it.

Summary: Sync folders with OneDrive's On-Demand to save space

• OneDrive's new Files On-Demand feature allows you to keep important files available locally on your device, while the rest live in the cloud on Microsoft's servers.
• Find the folder or file that you want to make available locally.
• Right-click or press and hold its name
• Select Always keep on this device.
• The folder icon changes to show a green circle with a white check box. This tells you that the file or folder is always available offline (on your device).

Conclusion

Just make sure to follow the steps mentioned properly so you can sync your folders efficiently.