The default save locations used by Windows on PCs can be changed and this can solve space problems on a small drive like an SSD. You can also save files to the cloud and access them anywhere.
Disk drives grew in size and even terabyte monsters because available in budget PCs, but then the space shrank in new PCs as solid state drives (SSDs) became popular. There are budget laptop PCs now with 64 GB or even just 32 GB of storage space. How on earth can you cope with such a small drive?
Whether you have a lot of storage space or a little, you have the option to move the default locations for documents, photos, movies and so on. A different partition or disk drive can be used if the C: drive is small or nearly full and storing everything elsewhere can help to solve space issues.
Add an extra drive and then set the save locations to it. Alternatively, files can be saved to OneDrive and stored online instead of on the disk.
Set save locations in Windows 10 Settings
Click the Search box in the taskbar and enter save locations, then click the result at the top. Another way to get there is to open the Settings app and click System > Storage > Change where new content is saved.
This will not move existing folders and files, but new content is saved to the drives you choose. I have a D: drive labelled Extra and it can be selected as a default location for various types of content.
Move the Documents and other folders
It is possible to move the Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos folders by right clicking them and selecting Properties on the menu that is displayed. Select the Location tab and then click Move to choose a new drive or partition for the folder.
That can be useful if the drive is nearly full and you want to create space by using an external drive. If you use another drive, such as a USB drive, make sure it is always powered up and plugged into the PC before starting Windows or problems may occur.
Tiny thumb drives are available that you can leave plugged into the PC all the time and you could move these system folders to it to make space.
Store files online in OneDrive
OneDrive is built into Windows 10 and 5 GB of free space online is provided. That is not enough for photos, videos or music, but you could store documents online. Of course, if you pay for extra storage or have it with a Microsoft Office subscription, you can put all your folders online.
Right click OneDrive in the sidebar of an Explorer window and select Settings on the menu. Select the Auto-save tab.
Choose where to save files. The options here enable you to choose whether to use the Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders in C:\Users\YourName or the ones in the OneDrive folder. Save a file to the Documents folder for example and it is saved to the location set here.
There are two more options and photos and videos can automatically be saved to the C:\Users\YourName\Pictures or the OneDrive\Pictures folder.
Store files online in OneDrive to save space
By default, a folder on the PC’s disk mirrors all the folders and files stored online in OneDrive. However, it is possible to store files only online, which frees up a lot of disk space on the PC.
Right click OneDrive in the sidebar in Explorer and select Settings. Select the Settings tab if it is not automatically selected.
Tick the box in the Files on Demand section. This tells OneDrive to store files online and not on the PC. Click OK to close this window and then right click OneDrive in Explorer’s sidebar and there is now a new option to clear space.
This deletes the files off the PC’s drive, freeing up space. Don’t worry, they are safely stored online. Open the OneDrive folder on the PC and everything looks normal because the files are replaced with shortcuts which, when clicked, download and open the file. Basically, it looks like all the files are on the disk but they are really online.
Windows downloads files in the background when they are needed. Don’t forget to right click OneDrive and clear space occasionally to remove local copies of files and free up space.
In the previous section we set the default locations for Desktop, Documents and Pictures to OneDrive, and now with Files on Demand enabled, those default locations are in the cloud.
A really nice feature of this is that every Windows computer you use will use the online locations as defaults, so there is one Documents folder across all your computers for instance.
The C:\Users\YourName\Documents folder, and Pictures and Desktop, still exist, so you might want to move your files and folders to the OneDrive versions of these folders. Then clear space so they are online.
Set default save locations in Windows 8
Few people use Windows 8.1 these days, but just in case you are one of them, I’ll leave this here. It was written some time ago when Windows 8 was the latest version of Microsoft’s OS.
Create a new document or file in an application in Windows 8, then go to the Save facility and you might find that it always defaults to the same location - OneDrive. It might be irritating if you don’t want to use that location and it is possible to turn off this feature. Not all programs use the default save location, but it’s worth knowing how to configure it.
Go to the Start screen and enter save location. Click the search result below, Choose a default save location for your files.
This takes you to OneDrive settings and another way to get here is to go to the charms on the right and click Settings, Change PC settings, OneDrive, File storage.
The option, Save documents to OneDrive by default can be turned off by clicking the button. Restart Windows afterwards.
This won’t affect all programs, just those that are designed to use the default save location.
Be the first to comment