Background Activity and Job Insights

Storage Studio does much of its work in the background: moving files, keeping an eye on free space, making cloud files online-only, backing up and more. Job Insights puts all of it on one screen, with one card per job, so you can see at a glance what ran, when, and whether anything needs your attention.

Open it from the More menu (•••) → Background Activity…. The window is called Job Insights.

Reading a card

Each card shows:

• The job's name and a status pill.
• When it last ran, as ran followed by how long ago, or Hasn't run yet.
• What the job does, in one line, and how often it runs, such as Checks every minute or Runs when you ask it to.
• How many runs finished: n successful · n didn't finish.
• The latest result, in a sentence.
• Details, or n issues · details when something needs a look. Opening it shows tips, such as how much space the job has freed so far, and any problems.

The header sums it up: Everything's running smoothly. or how many jobs need a look. Cards that need attention open by themselves so you can see the problem straight away.

%% caption: How a card's status pill is chosen
flowchart TD
  A[A background job] --> B{Running now?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Working…]
  B -->|No| D{Did the last run fail?}
  D -->|Yes| E[Needs attention]
  D -->|No| F{Any open issues or a partial run?}
  F -->|Yes| G[Attention]
  F -->|No| H{Has it ever run?}
  H -->|No| I[Ready]
  H -->|Yes| J[Healthy]

The jobs

The jobs you'll see include Free Up Space, File moves, Auto-sync, Apps relocator, Data Transfers, Optimise Cloud Storage, Local snapshots, Storage history, Storage watch, Restore points, Cleanup rules, Duplicates, Data Backup, Recycle Vault and others for the features you use. Each card's own description says what it does.

Problems, without the flood

A problem appears once on its job's card, with how many times it has happened (shown as ×n), not once per file. For example, if auto-sync keeps failing on some files, you get one notice for the folder explaining that those files are being skipped for now and your originals are safe. Messages are written in plain English.

To clear a problem you've dealt with, use the dismiss button on it: Dismiss this notice. Your files aren't affected.

Jobs that check something every few seconds or minutes, such as Storage watch, update their ran time without adding to the run count, so the numbers on the cards reflect real work.

When to look here

• A notification mentioned a problem and you want the detail.
• Free space dropped and you want to know whether Storage Studio caused it: Storage watch says when it was the app's own work.
• Something seems stuck. See Everything looks stuck.

See also: Where did my space go? · Why Storage Studio works slowly on purpose · Something's not working: start here · Sharing diagnostic logs with support