[ARCHIVED] Is there anyway to see if content in Files is not being accessed by anything in the course?

[austink8]

When you import a course you can easily get hundreds of files - I'd like to easily remove those that are not being accessed from within the course.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @austink8  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thank you for posting your question.  There isn't anything built-in to Canvas that I am aware of that would let you remove unneeded files from your course.  However, there is a third-party tool called "TidyUP" that helps you do just what you are asking.  It is a paid product, though.  You can find out more about this product by visiting this website: TidyUP for Canvas File and Page Cleanup - Cidi Labs.  This is all based upon a past conversation here in the Community: Tool to Identify and Delete Unused Files.

[michelle_steven]

Chris Hofer, thank you for the TidyUP mention. Chris is correct. The main purpose of TidyUP is to let you scan for and clear out unused files which helps greatly with course accessibility but it also makes it very easy to clear out multiple imports and unused content pages, quizzes, assignments, and discussions that have built up in a course over time.

After it scans your course, it will return back a report of all the files in a course that are not being used and allows you to delete them all from the course. You can also download an archive of all the files you are deleting just in case there happens to be something in there you need later. One of the other tabs provides a view of all course content and you can delete unused content from there. Here's a view of what it looks like: