Where is my Microsoft 365 data?
In OneDrive and SharePoint, you will see the terms “local” and “online-only” very often. What do these terms mean?
When a file is “local”, that means the file is physically on your computer. That file is on your storage drive (general term for “hard drive”, “hard disk” or “SSD”), taking up space. If you were to sail out into the middle of the ocean, you would be able to open and edit the file without issue.
When a file is “online-only” (you can also consider it to be “remote”, to contrast the previous term), that means it is not on your computer, and you need internet access in order to open the file.
365 has a feature named Files On-Demand that automatically handles the transition of files from online-only to local, and vice versa. With On-Demand enabled, only the files that you are working on will consume space on your storage drive. This feature is enabled by default when you first install OneDrive.
A real-world scenario: I have tons and tons of files in OneDrive. I log into my laptop and open the OneDrive folder and I see every folder that I own in front of me. I dig into a couple folders to find the Word document I want and double-click on it. The file automatically downloads from OneDrive and then opens in Word. This file is now local, it can be edited and saved, and it is consuming space on my storage drive. When I click on Save, my changes are automatically sent to OneDrive. I then close Word. If I do not touch that document again within 30 days, it will remove itself from my computer and return to online-only. It is no longer consuming space on my storage drive. If I need to edit the file again, I double-click on it, and once again it downloads to my computer. If I edit the document again 10 days later, the 30-day timer resets.
This is how “Files On-Demand" works. The files appear as if they are on your computer allowing you to double-click them. Once double-clicked, they download to your computer so you can edit them. Once the file goes 30 days without interaction, it silently removes itself from your computer and returns to an online-only state and frees up the space on your storage drive that it was using.