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46 |^ |^ June 2019
Get set up properly
Carry out an audit of your current OneDrive setup
and make sure it’s performing to your needs
e’re going to assume
you’ve already stepped
through the basics of
getting OneDrive set up
but have subsequently
left it to its own devices.
Not only might you be missing out on
some neat features, but you may be
suffering in seemingly unrelated ways
(for example, sluggish performance
when opening and saving Office files).
Step one, then, is to fine-tune the
desktop OneDrive app settings.
Click the OneDrive icon – the double
cloud – in the Taskbar’s notification area
(click ‘^’ if it’s not currently visible) to
bring up OneDrive’s status window,
then click More > Settings to reveal
various options spread across six tabs.
Tweak core settings
Start with the Settings tab. You’ll
see that OneDrive can be set to not
automatically start with Windows if
you rarely use it – but remember no
files you add or change in the OneDrive
folder will be uploaded to the cloud if
it’s not running. If you’d like additional
protection against accidentally
removing files from OneDrive, tick the
‘Warn me before removing files from
the cloud’ box.
The Files on Demand feature is a
relatively recent addition to OneDrive’s
feature set. If space is at a premium on
your PC, tick the box to convert all the
OneDrive folders and files into ‘online-
only’ versions. This frees up space by
replacing all the files in your OneDrive
folder with shortcuts pointing to the
physical files in the cloud. Online-
only files are marked with a small blue
cloud icon that appears in the Status
column next to a file or folder name.
Double-click this or open the file
through another application and the file
is downloaded from the cloud to your
PC, at which point the blue cloud is
replaced by a green tick to indicate that
it’s ‘locally available’. The file will then
remain on your computer until space is
needed. Right-click the file and choose‘Clear space’ to convert it back to
online-only, or select ‘Always keep
on this device’ to download the item
and keep it permanently on your PC
until you say otherwise – these files
are indicated with a white tick on a
green background.
If you have OneDrive files spread
across multiple computers, you may
not need to sync them all to this PC, in
which case another option is to pick and
choose which folders to store on your
PC. Click ‘Choose folders’ on the
Account tab to untick those folders
you’d like to keep off your PC. TheyPair OneDrive with Office 365
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Office 365 subscriptions come with 1TB of
OneDrive storage – and premium-only features.OneDrive’s Files on Demand
feature allows you to save space
but keep files within easy reach.