With the arrival of Windows 8, and especially with Windows 10, Microsoft tried to enhance the use of its cloud so that users could upload their files and share them with others. Thanks to its convenience, and the integration with the operating system, OneDrive is gaining a large number of users. Microsoft offers us 15 GB for free to save what we want in its cloud, and, if we pay for Microsoft 365, we can increase that space up to 1 TB. Even more, if we pay for more additional space. However, it may happen that, despite not using this cloud, we see messages that we are running out of space. What’s going on?
What happens when we don’t have space on OneDrive?
Although it was originally created to save and share documents, today the Microsoft cloud allows us to save all kinds of files in it. And, in this way, we can access our data quickly and easily just by having an Internet connection, either from another PC or from a smartphone.
As long as we have free space in the cloud we will not have problems. All the data that we want will be stored in this cloud, and we will be able to have access to them without problems. But, if we run out of space, that’s when the problems start.
If we use the free plan, it is difficult to go over 15 GB since OneDrive itself will prevent us from uploading more of that space. But if we have 1 TB with Microsoft 365, we occupy (for example) 500 GB, and we stop paying, our account has 15 GB available again. The data is not erased (at least, for a while), but it goes into a frozen state where we will have to pay the subscription again if we want to recover it.
Even if we do not have space, the data will always be stored safely , and we will not have problems, as long as we do not try to save any new files. Of course, we must prepare to see messages and notices all the time that we do not have space available.
How can it be full if I don’t use it?
There are users who find that their OneDrive is full, despite not using it. This is because, when we install Windows, the OneDrive assistant gives us to choose if we want to make an automatic backup of our data in the cloud . And this, in the long run, ends up leaving us without available space.
To check if this is the problem, what we can do is open the configuration panel of the Windows OneDrive client, and look for a tab called “Backup“.
Here we are going to find three important options. The first one is the button to manage backups, which will allow us to choose which personal folders we want, or not, to copy to the cloud. By default, Microsoft allows us to upload the Desktop, Documents and Images. We can also make automatic backup of photos and videos every time we connect a camera or mobile phone to the computer, and upload the screenshots directly to the cloud.
If we have these options activated (especially the first one), it is surely the reason why we are running out of space. It will be enough to deactivate the backup copies, and delete the data uploaded to the cloud, to regain free space on the PC.
