Buzz
OneDrive storage service offers a plethora of different functionalities allowing users to better manage their data, including the Files On-Demand feature. But what exactly does this feature do?
Understanding OneDrive's Files On-Demand Feature
Discover the OneDrive Files On-Demand Feature, enabling you to access all files in your OneDrive account without the need to download documents, images, and other files to your computer. This feature proves beneficial if you have tens of GB of data in your OneDrive account but prefer not to download all those files to your computer to avoid 'filling up' the available hard drive space.
In essence, with the OneDrive Files On-Demand feature, you can access files in your OneDrive account directly through Windows 10 File Explorer without downloading them to your computer.
Although online-only files or files not downloaded to your computer won't occupy space on your device, they will still appear on your computer. You can easily identify these online-only files with a cloud icon displayed on them. Note that online-only files appear in File Explorer even when you're offline. However, you can't open these files offline.
If you want to open or edit an online-only file, simply double-click on the file. Windows 10 will download the file to your computer. Of course, your computer must have an active Internet connection to download online-only files to your computer.
After downloading online-only files to your computer, you can edit and open them offline. If you want to 'return' files to their original online-only state, it's quite simple: just right-click on the file and select Free up space.
To protect your data, it's advisable to automatically sync Win 10 data to OneDrive instead of manually selecting which data to sync. The process of syncing Win 10 data to OneDrive is straightforward and not as complicated as you might think.
If you prefer not to sync your data to OneDrive, you should stop OneDrive syncing on Windows 10 to prevent unfortunate incidents like OneDrive account breaches. Detailed instructions on how to stop OneDrive syncing have been provided by Mytour in previous tutorials.
Activating OneDrive Files On-Demand on Windows 10
Step 1: Right-click on the OneDrive icon in the system tray, select Settings.
Step 2: In the Settings tab, check the box next to Save space and download files as you use them, then click OK to activate OneDrive Files On-Demand feature.
You can also refer to detailed instructions on how to enable, disable OneDrive Files On-Demand on Windows 10 from Mytour
If you don't see the Save space and download files as you use them option, it means this feature isn't available on your Windows 10 build yet.
Exploring the feature of OneDrive Files On-Demand, as discussed in the previous article, will enhance your understanding of utilizing one of the most popular cloud storage services today. Besides OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox are also exceptional online storage solutions. Google Drive offers 15GB of free storage, whereas Dropbox provides 2GB, with ample opportunities to increase this capacity.
