--- title: "Pausing or stopping everything" url: https://storagestudio.us/wiki/pausing-and-stopping category: "Safety & undo" tags: ["safety", "pause", "troubleshooting", "data parking"] summary: "If something looks wrong, you can stop a single move or clear-up with its own Stop or Cancel button, pause Storage Studio's automatic clear-ups with Pause, hold all background work with Minimum mode, or quit. Stopping part-way is safe — originals stay put until a copy has been checked." updated: 2026-10-01T05:37:10.000Z --- # Pausing or stopping everything If something looks wrong, you can stop a single move or clear-up with its own Stop or Cancel button, pause Storage Studio's automatic clear-ups with Pause, hold all background work with Minimum mode, or quit. Stopping part-way is safe — originals stay put until a copy has been checked. If something looks wrong, you can stop Storage Studio at whatever level you need: one move or clear-up with its own **Stop** or **Cancel** button, its automatic clear-ups with **Pause**, all of its background work with **Minimum** mode, or everything at once by quitting. Stopping part-way is safe: an original is never removed until its copy has finished and been checked, so a cancelled move leaves your files where they were. ## Pick the right control ```mermaid %% caption: Which control to use when something looks wrong flowchart TD A[Something looks wrong] --> B{What do you want to stop?} B -->|One folder move| C[Cancel it in Data Parking's Moves panel] B -->|All queued moves| D[Pause the queue or Cancel all moves] B -->|An Emergency Space clear-up| E[Click Stop on the run] B -->|Automatic clear-ups| F[Pause in the Advanced view] B -->|All background work| G[Choose Minimum performance mode] B -->|Everything right now| H[Quit Storage Studio] ``` *Flowchart — Which control to use when something looks wrong. Outline:* - Something looks wrong - leads to What do you want to stop? - What do you want to stop? - One folder move: leads to Cancel it in Data Parking's Moves panel - All queued moves: leads to Pause the queue or Cancel all moves - An Emergency Space clear-up: leads to Click Stop on the run - Automatic clear-ups: leads to Pause in the Advanced view - All background work: leads to Choose Minimum performance mode - Everything right now: leads to Quit Storage Studio ## Stopping folder moves Moves you start in [Data Parking](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/moving-folders-safely) are listed in its **Moves** panel. - **Cancel one move** from the **Moves** panel. The copy stops and the original isn't touched. The one exception is a move that has already reached its very last step, removing the original after a checked copy; that step is allowed to finish. - **Pause the queue** — "a copy already running finishes, but no new jobs start until you resume." - **Cancel all moves** stops every running, queued and waiting move in that window after you confirm. As the confirmation says, your source files are never deleted before a move finishes, so nothing is lost. A cancelled move can leave a partial copy at the destination. Your original is still complete; you can delete the partial copy or simply start the move again. See [A folder move failed or was cancelled](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/a-move-failed). ## Stopping an Emergency Space clear-up An [Emergency Space](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/emergency-space) run has its own **Stop** button. It finishes the folder it's already working on, so nothing is left half-removed, then halts. **Carry on** picks up where it stopped. Anything it had already removed is in the [Recycle Vault](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/recycle-vault). ## Pausing automatic clear-ups In the Advanced view's popover, **Pause** halts Storage Studio's automatic actions while the background service keeps running. Free Up Space and the scheduled relocation of folders sleep until you click **Resume**. While paused, the Home screen shows **Automatic actions are paused** with its own **Resume** button. (To reach the Advanced view, use **Switch to Advanced View** in the **More** menu.) Pause doesn't stop rules that move a watched folder's files automatically as they change. Turn those rules off in the Rules window — see [Rules: moving folders automatically](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/rules-and-automatic-moves) — or use Minimum mode below. The Advanced popover also has **Stop Service**, which unloads the background service. It isn't a lasting off switch: while Storage Studio is open, [self-healing](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/self-healing) notices a service that isn't running and starts it again. Use **Pause** when you want automatic actions to stay off. ## Holding all background work Choosing **Minimum — core only** as the [performance mode](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/performance-modes), in the Storage Profile window, holds Storage Studio's background work in one step: rules that move files automatically, scheduled transfers, automatic backups, background duplicate scans, Bridge and Junk Yard capture. Things you start yourself still work. Switch back to **Automatic — adapts to your Mac** to resume. ## Quitting **Quit Storage Studio**, at the bottom of the **More** menu, closes the app and the helper processes it started. A copy that was in progress stops, and its original stays where it was — originals are only removed after a copy has finished and been checked. ## Afterwards - To see what ran and whether anything went wrong, open [Background Activity](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/background-activity) from the **More** menu. - To undo a batch of moves, use [Restore Points](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/restore-points) → **Roll Back Last Batch**. - To get back something that was removed, use the [Recycle Vault](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/recycle-vault). See also: [How Storage Studio keeps every change reversible](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/how-storage-studio-keeps-you-safe) · [Everything looks stuck](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/everything-looks-stuck) · ["Service is stopped" won't go away](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/service-is-stopped) ## What links here - ["Service is stopped" won't go away](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/service-is-stopped) - [A dry run shows files I don't want moved](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/dry-run-shows-unwanted-files) - [During meetings, calls and presentations](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/during-meetings-and-calls) - [Ejecting your drive safely](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/ejecting-your-drive) - [Emergency Space: when the disk is full right now](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/emergency-space) - [Everything looks stuck](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/everything-looks-stuck) - [How Storage Studio keeps every change reversible](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/how-storage-studio-keeps-you-safe) - [Is Storage Studio slowing my Mac down?](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/is-storage-studio-slowing-my-mac) - [Quiet Hours](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/quiet-hours) - [Reviewing, stopping and checking a clear-up](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/reviewing-a-clear-up) - [Rules: moving folders automatically](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/rules-and-automatic-moves) - [Self-healing](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/self-healing) - [Starting Storage Studio at login](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/start-at-login) - [The Services pane](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/services-pane) - [The menu bar icon and popover](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/the-menu-bar-icon-and-popover)