Over time, your Drive can accumulate files that are outdated, duplicated, or no longer used in any content. This article walks you through the different ways to remove files in Drive and what happens after removal.
Why remove files
- Clean up unused assets — Remove files that are no longer referenced in any article, page, or content reuse element to keep Drive organized.
- Free up storage — Deleting files you no longer need helps manage your Drive storage efficiently.
- Correct accidental uploads — Remove files that were uploaded to the wrong project or folder.
Before you begin
- Removing files with active dependencies will immediately break all links.
- You can select and remove files across multiple pages in a single bulk action.
How to remove a file
There are three ways to remove files from Drive.
From the top menu bar
Use this method to remove one or more files at once.
- Open Drive () from your Document360 project.
- Select the file or files you want to remove.
- Click Remove () in the top menu bar.
The selected files are moved to the Recycle Bin.
You can select files across multiple pages before clicking Remove. All selected files will be removed in a single action.
From the file details panel
Use this method to remove a single file.
- Open Drive () and open the File details panel for the file.
- Click the Remove icon.
The file is moved to the Recycle Bin.
From the file context menu
Use this method to quickly remove a single file without opening the details panel.
- Open Drive () and click the More () icon next to the file name.
- Select Remove from the dropdown menu.
The file is moved to the Recycle Bin.
If the file you are removing has active dependencies, a warning will appear before the action is confirmed. Proceeding will immediately break all links to that file across articles, pages, and content reuse elements. The CDN cache is cleared right away. Check file dependencies before removing to avoid unintended broken links.
After removal
- Removed files are available in the Recycle Bin for 30 days.
- Within that window, you can restore a file to its original location or permanently delete it before the 30 days are up.
- After 30 days, files are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
For steps on restoring files, see Recent, Starred, and Recycle bin files.
Best practices
- Check dependencies before removing — Use the Dependencies column or the View dependencies panel to confirm a file is not actively used before deleting it. This prevents unintended broken links in published content.
- Filter for files without dependencies — On the All Files page, filter by "Without dependencies" to identify safe-to-delete files before acting.
- Use bulk remove deliberately — Since you can select files across multiple pages, double-check your selection before confirming. Removing a large batch is harder to undo than removing files one at a time.
- Act within the 30-day window — If a file was removed accidentally, restore it from the Recycle Bin promptly. Once the 30-day period passes, recovery is not possible.
- Download before removing — If you are unsure whether a file will be needed again, download it locally before removal as a backup.