As technology evolves, everything tends to become larger and larger in size. Games are huge nowadays, videos and images have increasingly higher resolutions, and a lot of programs are far more bloated than they need to be. This can leave you without enough space for the things that matter.

But Windows 11 has a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to saving space. Storage Sense is a pretty big feature that works in the background to help you save some space, but one part of it you may not know about is how it handles locally stored OneDrive files. And combining that with the OneDrive files on-demand feature can be a great way to save space on your PC in the long run — if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, at least.

What is a "file on demand"?

Download just what you need

Since Windows 8.1, OneDrive has had a useful feature where you can use the sync client (which is included with Windows) to sync all your cloud files to your PC. This can be set up in a couple of ways: you can either download every file on your OneDrive storage, or use what's sometimes called files on demand.

Essentially, this makes it so that the entire structure of your OneDrive storage is visible and accessible within the Windows File Explorer, but the files themselves aren't downloaded until you need them. When you open a file for the first time, a copy of it is downloaded to your computer, and any changes you make are synced back to OneDrive.

This system keeps all your files at your disposal while saving you storage space for when you actually need it, so it's already very useful by itself.

What Storage Sense can do

Delete older files automatically

Storage Sense is a feature that's been around since Windows 10, and it essentially tries to free up storage continuously by automatically removing certain files. For example, files in your Recycle Bin are automatically deleted after they've been there for 30 days. And if you're running low on storage, Windows will also try to delete temporary files to free up more space.

But one big component of it is also the ability to automatically delete locally-stored OneDrive files that haven't been used in some time, and it's a perfect pairing for OneDrive files on demand. Basically, if you've previously accessed one of your OneDrive files but you don't need it anymore, Storage Sense will automatically free up that space. If you need the file again, you can always redownload the latest version and make a new local copy.

You can set different time periods after which you want files to be deleted. If you're strapped for storage space, you can set it to happen after just one day, but you can go as far as 60 days if you have more breathing room. This feature is disabled by default, so you do have to set it up yourself.

Keep your internet in mind

You may need to be online

This setup does come with a potential downside, which is that you might inadvertently need an internet connection in the future. If a file you previously downloaded gets removed from your local storage by Storage Sense, that means you need to download it again, which requires the internet. If you're expecting to be able to access a downloaded file while traveling or in remote areas, this can be very frustrating when you realize you have no way to get to that file.

Thankfully, OneDrive's integration with Windows 11 does offer a solution for this as well, though it requires you to be pre-emptive. If there's a file you need to keep available offline indefinitely, you can go into File Explorer, right-click that file, and choose OneDrive > Always keep on this device.

This will prevent files from being automatically deleted, with the added benefit that if you make any changes to the files in OneDrive (through a web browser or on another device), those changes automatically sync down to your local copy as well. If you ever change your mind, you can just disable this option and the file will be treated as normal.

Keep your local storage free

How much free storage you get from this will naturally depend on your usage habits. It may also be less useful if you don't have a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, since OneDrive only offers 5GB of free storage. But if you spring for a 1TB plan, you can move most of your files to the cloud and only sync the ones you need at any given time, and that should save you quite a bit of time. It's especially useful for lower-end devices that tend to have very limited storage space, especially with a large operating system like Windows 11.