Clean up before backup
Streamline the files and folders you need to store online before backing them up to save drive space and speed up the process.
Your online backup space is likely to be limited — particularly if you’re relying on free storage — so it obviously makes sense to go through the files and folders you want to back up before you start uploading. Some judicious pruning now won’t simply give you more room to work with, it’ll also speed up the initial backup process as less data will have to be uploaded.
A complete spring-clean of your PC isn’t required here — instead, you want to focus all your attention on the folders you plan to back up to the cloud. Typically, these will be your user folders — Documents, Photos and so on.
REMOVE DUPLICATES
One obvious way you can reclaim space is through the removal of duplicate and similar files. The step-by-step guide on the page opposite reveals how to use two free tools in tandem — the first (Duplicate Cleaner Free) covers all duplicate files, while the second (AntiDupl) enables you to weed out similar image files too, perfect for those times you took a dozen photos only to not bother going through them all to pick out the best one.
Some tips when using AntiDupl: one, the results display photos in groups of similar/duplicate snaps, with the top-most photo in the list deemed the ‘master’ and therefore untouched. By default, it’s assumed you’ll want to keep this top photo, but previews on the left coupled with a series of action buttons allow you to change what happens. We recommend selecting Help, then help to access the online manual, then select ‘Table of Results’ for a comprehensive description of what to do. If you don’t like the way the previews sit to the left of the results list, choose ‘View > View mode of results > Table of horizontal pairs’ for a better view.
ARCHIVE OLD FILES
Another way to save space is to decide whether all your files need to be uploaded to the cloud. It may be that older files can be excluded from this backup by archiving them to a different medium — an external drive, say — which is then stored away from your PC in a safe place. Alternatively, save space by zipping up old files or folders you rarely — if ever — access. This can reduce their size considerably while still giving you access to the files in future — we recommend ZIP over other compressed file formats because it’s a universal format and support for it is built right into Windows.
ZIP files can be picky about file names, so if your files are rejected due to the presence of certain characters such as bullet points, use a filerenaming tool like Advanced Renamer ( www.advancedrenamer.com) to quickly find and replace offending characters with more acceptable substitutes (or simply remove them completely).
As a side-note, you can search the contents of ZIP files that have been indexed by Windows Search, but if your ZIP files reside in a non-indexed location (typically outside your user folders), open File Explorer, switch to the ribbon’s View tab and click Options, then the Search tab and tick ‘Include compressed files...’ then click OK to include them in future searches.