Google drive making extra local copy on phone

Question

I tried uploading some large audio files recorded on my phone to Google Drive to free up space on my phone (Xiaomi A1).



Almost immediately, I got memory insufficient warnings; apparently the Google Drive app stores a local copy on the device everything something is uploaded.



Is this counter-productive or am I using Drive wrong? I'd like to store files on the cloud and not on my device, with an option to download them to device when I require them. Any solutions towards this end are welcome!



( I would prefer not to migrate to another cloud storage app, but if that's the only option and/or there are other good reasons for that, please let me know.)


— AndroidNovice | Sources

Answer

Some possible causes to why the Drive app saves local copies:




  1. The file has been accessed recently and cached. This is possibly to reduce more bandwidth usage when the file is accessed regularly. Clearing the cache from the in-app's Settings can save some space, including limiting the cache size to a minimum of 100 MB.


  2. The file is marked as "available offline". Files that are marked as "available offline" will be automatically downloaded to the local disk. To toggle it, tap the overflow context menu (3 vertical dots) on the file, and select "Available offline". To check which files are marked as such, there's an "Offline" category on the navigation drawer.



— Andrew T. | Sources

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