How to move the Microsoft Office File Cache when using Office 2016 and the Next Generation OneDrive Sync Client?

Question

I have Office 2016 and use the Next Generation OneDrive Sync Client, both running under Windows 10.

My computer has two drives with one partition each:

• C: a small solid state disk for OS, applications and some hand-selected files that require high access speeds
• E: a large hard disk drive

My OneDrive libraries are set to sync with folders on drive E:.

I have attempted to upload 135 GB data spread over 85,377 files in 9,273 folders into one of my OneDrive libraries. During upload I realized that OneDrive builds up a huge OfficeFileCache in C:\Users\Hauke\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\15.0\OfficeFileCache. The OfficeFileCache grew to 25 GB in size - and then my C: drive was full. When this point was reached, OneDrive stopped working with the helpful error message "OneDrive stopped working".

I want to keep my OfficeFileCache, and especially I want to keep cached files for the default 14 days. But I want the cache to be built on the E: drive.

So my question boils down to: How do I tell my system to build the OfficeFileCache on the E: drive instead of the C: drive?

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By the way: I already tried to modify the system registry as suggested here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/onedrive-wastes-my-ssd-drive-space/981f06da-776b-4e1f-9f88-35db77461e92 Unfortunately the key OfficeCacheLocation does not seem to be respected by Office 2016 or the Next Generation OneDrive Sync Client, neither in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Internet nor in the ...\16.0\... one.

Answer 1

I realize this is an old question, but it was still unanswered and I ran across it looking for something else. In any case, if OneDrive isn't cooperating you can always create a junction to the new folder. I use this for moving folders that don't want to move on their own.

You'll want to shutdown OneDrive, move the folder to your E: drive, then open a command prompt. From there cd to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\15.0 and use mklink /j destination source

So, if you were to move the OfflineFileCache to the root of your E: drive it would be: cd C:\Users\Hauke\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\15.0 mklink /j OfflineFileCache E:\OfflineFileCache