Cleaning up Course Files

[AMye1]

Instructors cannot tell which files are linked and which aren’t. The idea of going through a cleaning all of those out just isn’t feasible time-wise. Would be great if there was an option to purge the orphaned files in Canvas. Like, if when you copied a class, it only copied the files that are in some way linked in the class. Or if you could run some kind of cleanup. Do you all know of anything like that?  

[oneilllj]

Hi @AMye1 

I am not aware of a process you can do to clean files like you have mentioned, but it sounds like a great idea. You might like to make a suggestion to the Canvas team about it.

Another possible work around is sharing files from a common SharePoint with read only access for students. This way the files are controlled in a central location and only linked and added to Canvas as they are required. In addition, you are not then continually uploading files to Canvas, rather providing links to the necessary files.

Let me know how you go.

Thanks

Jen

[Chris_Hofer]

@AMye1 ...

There is a paid product from Cidi Labs (the makers of DesignPLUS, ReadyGO, and UDOIT that you may have heard of before) called TidyUP, and it does exactly what you are looking for.  TidyUP scans your entire course and looks for unused content and files that are safe to delete so that you can free up space in your course(s).  You can find out more about it at:

TidyUP for Canvas File and Page Cleanup | Cidi Labs

Since this needs to be installed at the Canvas account level, you'd want to talk with your school's Online Learning / eLearning / Distance Education team or your Canvas administrator to see if purchasing this would be an option now or in the future.  They would then reach out to the Cidi Labs team (they are great, by the way!) to line up some initial conversations, possibly schedule a demonstration, and talk about pricing for your school.

I hope this will help a bit.  Good luck to you!