Every year on 21 March, Digital Clean‑up Day encourages people and organisations across the world to step back, declutter their digital spaces, and rethink the environmental impact of our storage habits. What can feel like a small, everyday action—deleting old files, clearing out unused apps, archiving what you still need—actually carries significant consequences for energy use, carbon footprint and long‑term sustainability.
This year, we asked colleagues across the University to join us in tackling “dead data”: outdated, duplicate, or unnecessary files stored across our systems. Digital storage isn’t free—financially or environmentally. As highlighted in our original post, with Microsoft’s new licensing model reducing our allocated quotas later this year, the pressure to reduce storage is more important than ever.
A Big Win from Infrastructure Development
A huge thank‑you goes to our Infrastructure Development team, who carried out an impressive clean‑up of their SharePoint site. Here’s what they achieved:
- Reduced SharePoint storage from 208GB to 87GB
- That’s an incredible 42% reduction in data in their site alone.
Our team noted, from a total capacity perspective “it’s a drop in the ocean”—but percentage‑wise, it’s a standout result and a great demonstration of what targeted clean‑up can look like in practice.
Why This Matters
When many teams make changes like this, the impact quickly adds up. As our original post outlined, the University is currently exceeding its storage allocation by 110TB, which could cost us £30,000 per year from 2026 if we don’t reduce our usage.
By taking steps now—individually and collectively—we can:
- Avoid these additional costs
- Reduce our environmental impact
- Improve performance across our systems
- Build stronger habits around responsible digital storage
What You Can Still Do
If you haven’t had a chance to take part yet, it’s not too late. Start with:
- Clearing out old files in OneDrive, Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint
- Deleting duplicates, outdated drafts, and anything no longer needed
- Moving personal files off University systems
- Encouraging your team to dedicate an hour to a shared clean‑up session
Even small actions can make a meaningful difference.
A Little Personal Clean‑up Confession…
While doing my own Digital Clean‑up Day sweep, I discovered something unexpectedly vintage lurking in the depths of my OneDrive — a full copy of my old H: drive. Yes, the one I thought had vanished into history. Even better, our team shared folder was STILL carrying content from our old Box migration, quietly duplicating itself for no good reason. All of that has now been cleared out, and it feels very satisfying.
And here’s a fun twist: who knew the GIFs we fire at each other in Teams (it’s not just me… right?) actually take up a surprising amount of space? Definitely worth tidying those up every so often. If you’re not sure how to clear them or need a hand with any digital decluttering, just log a call with the Information Centre and we’ll point you in the right direction.