Reviewing, stopping and checking a clear-up

Every clear-up in Storage Studio can be looked at before it starts and checked after it finishes, and the bigger ones can be stopped part-way without leaving anything half-done. This page shows where to do each of those, tool by tool.

%% caption: The three moments you can step in during a clear-up
flowchart LR
  A[Before: preview or review] --> B[During: watch, and stop if needed]
  B --> C[After: summary, records and undo]
  C --> D{Want something back?}
  D -->|A move| E[Move back or Restore Points]
  D -->|Something removed| F[Recycle Vault or the Trash]

Before: see what will happen

• Your rules. Open the More menu (•••) → Automatic Moves… and click Run preview under Dry run preview. Each line says what the next run would do, such as WOULD MOVE or WOULD KEEP (you've opened it recently), and nothing changes. See Dry run and Rules: moving folders automatically.
• Emergency Space. Clicking Free up space first opens Review what will move, which shows everything you selected, opened up one level, and lists separately anything that will be removed rather than moved. Nothing has happened yet; Cancel takes you back. See Emergency Space.
• Smart Care. The run starts with a planning step, Reviewing and optimising the plan — nothing changed yet., and the checklist shows every step, with skipped ones marked Not needed. Duplicate files are only ever offered at the end, with Review first… to open the Duplicates window. See Smart Care.
• Auto Rules. Rules that aren't the safest kind wait under Suggested — needs your approval until you approve them. Turn on Suggest only — never apply automatically if you want to approve every rule yourself. See Auto Rules.

During: stopping safely

To halt Storage Studio's work more generally, see Pausing or stopping everything.

Closing a progress window never stops the work. Free Up Space and Emergency Space both carry on in the background, and you can reopen their progress from the popover's running pill or Show progress.

After: check what happened

• Smart Care ends with Done and a plain summary of what it moved and freed, and ticks each step it ran. The same summary stays on the Home screen.
• Free Up Space shows a result banner with what was freed, files moved and caches cleaned. The progress window keeps the run's output line by line, and its copy button puts it on your clipboard.
• Emergency Space shows how much was freed, measured on your disk, with lists you can open of the folders already removed and the ones not touched.
• Job Insights keeps a card for each job with when it last ran, how many runs finished and any problems. See Background Activity and Job Insights.
• Activity Log… in the More menu shows Storage Studio's detailed activity log.

Putting things back

• Something that was moved to your external drive can be moved back. Folders moved from What's Using Space are listed in its Relocated panel with Move back. Moves made by Smart Care or Free Up Space are recorded as Restore Points, so a whole run can be undone together: More menu → Restore Points….
• Something Emergency Space removed is in the Recycle Vault. Click Open Recycle Vault after the run, or use More menu → Recycle Vault….
• Something a Delete rule removed went to the Trash, so you can drag it back out, unless it was already in the Trash.
• Caches aren't kept: the app rebuilds them by itself.

See also: The Moves log · How Storage Studio keeps every change reversible · Restoring something from the Recycle Vault · Moving a folder back · The Trash and the space it holds