How to Tell if a File is Linked in the Course or Recently Accessed

[LMacaulay]

A faculty member just asked me: 

I am wondering if there is a way to clean out the Files sections in some of the courses I support more efficiently. Is there a way to tell from the Files section if something is in a Module? Or some way of telling if it’s been accessed recently. Other than the date modified?

I hope someone has a way that is easy because we have content in courses from when we migrated from another LMS a few years ago that is still hanging around in courses. The only idea I had would be to take a best guess, download things we want to try deleting and then delete things and run the link validator and then reupload anything that actually is still in the course, but that sure seems painful.

I wish that there was a column in Files for "Location Used" like there is for Rubrics.

[LMacaulay · Accepted solution]

Certainly an idea, but that sounds more painful than my work-around!  The faculty member actually tweaked my original work-around noted in my post to make it even better (but still not easy).  If you unpublish a file that you think is not in use under Files and it IS linked somewhere in the course on a Page or Assignment, when you run the Link Validation tool it will appear in the list so you would know to NOT delete it (see screenshot). Any files you unpublished that don't appear in link validator as unpublished should be safely able to be deleted. However, double-check that there are no files linked directly in Modules because files linked directly in Modules did not appear in the list of broken links for me. 

[NoahBoswell]

Hi there @LMacaulay ,

Thank you for asking on the Instructure Community!

At this time... I don't believe that there is a way to see which files are actually used in modules or other areas of your course unless you look at those modules specifically. However, when it comes to seeing if recent files were accessed, maybe going through your student's access reports as a teacher would be useful? https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-view-the-course-access-report-for-an-in...

I hope this helps a bit, reach out with any additional questions! Thanks!
Noah

[LMacaulay · Accepted solution]

Certainly an idea, but that sounds more painful than my work-around!  The faculty member actually tweaked my original work-around noted in my post to make it even better (but still not easy).  If you unpublish a file that you think is not in use under Files and it IS linked somewhere in the course on a Page or Assignment, when you run the Link Validation tool it will appear in the list so you would know to NOT delete it (see screenshot). Any files you unpublished that don't appear in link validator as unpublished should be safely able to be deleted. However, double-check that there are no files linked directly in Modules because files linked directly in Modules did not appear in the list of broken links for me. 

[dbrace]

Hi @LMacaulay,

I do not have an easier way to do this than a mix of what you, your faculty member, and @NoahBoswell have described.

What I can say is (and my institution does not subscribe to it) that there is a third-party tool called "TidyUp" (there is a fee) that does just what you are looking for.

https://cidilabs.com/landing/tidyup-for-canvas-cleanup

TidyUP Your Canvas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JorA4RWLjEw 

-Doug

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @LMacaulay ,

If you are a little technically minded there is an API call that can be run from browser https://canvas.creatiefschrijven.be/doc/api/files.html although you need a json to spreadsheet browser extension or use a conversion tool.

We have (Blackboard) Ally as our accessibility checker, and there is the capability to download a list of files, but only in the sub-account access - not in Ally access at course level.

You can also check the New Analytics link, and this will display (or download to .csv) a list of content accessed - note that the formats and what is included seem to be a little different - I am not sure that screen view includes image files, for example.

One of the tricks we pull where we have an overloaded site is to list the accessibility report and the new analytics report so that we can focus on what is actually being used - the inverse to your problem.