Reduce your digital footprint; delete old files

Earlier, we told you about the impact of the internet and digital work on the environment. And we let you know what you can do to reduce your own digital footprint, namely by cleaning up your email. You can do even more. In this blog, we explain how you can do it smartly.

Did you know that at least two-thirds of the data created is never used again, but consumes energy as long as it is stored somewhere? The constant production and consumption of data worldwide requires three times more energy than all the world’s solar panels can produce.

So storing and keeping files has a big impact. Cleaning up your files not only saves energy but also costs and reduces your impact on the environment; a win-win situation as far as we are concerned! The steps below will help you tackle this easily.

Clear your desktop

It is convenient to save a file on the desktop and find it easily there. A shame, because did you know that files on the desktop of your PC or laptop make your device extremely slow? So our tip is to clean up these files first. Delete files you no longer need and drag the files you want to keep to the appropriate folder on the server or in the cloud. Do the same with your downloads folder. When you store as few files as possible on your local device, you extend the life of your device, which is also more economical for your wallet and the environment.

Cleaning up disks

We are often asked to make more disk space available, but in many cases this is not necessary. A thorough clean-up can already save a lot of space. It takes a lot of work, but there are huge benefits to cleaning up your (local) disks. It makes your device faster, ensures that you consume less disk space, reducing costs and reducing the impact on the environment.

You can of course do this on your own, or organise a day(s) to tackle this with the whole company. To make sure you don’t have to open each file one by one to determine whether it can be gone, we have some handy tips for you:

• Sort by name. Files with the same name, of which you can keep the latest version and delete the rest.
• Sort by date. The tax authorities require you to keep financial records for the past seven years. You can use this as a guide for all your files. Anything older than seven years you can delete. Of course, you can also use 10 years or any other number as a starting point.
  
  

Working in the cloud

Switching to working in the cloud is a good idea if you want to work more efficiently and it also affects your costs and your digital footprint. After all, in the cloud, you only use what you need. Find out what other benefits the cloud offers here.

When you also work with Microsoft365 (M365), you go to the next level when it comes to sustainability. M365 allows you to easily collaborate on documents, eliminating the need to email files back and forth. Also, the application itself keeps version control and you don’t need to save a new version of every document change.

Do you want to switch to the cloud and/or M365? We would be happy to guide you through this process. Contact us for a free consultation.

Before switching over, we recommend cleaning up your disks and mail; a good reason not to put it off any longer. If you are not planning to switch, you are helping the environment and your wallet with a clean-up campaign, making it always a sensible action.

Measuring is knowing

Want to know how much memory of files you have deleted? Then first put these files in a folder – Digital Clean Up, for example – and check how big this folder is once you are completely done. Then you can delete the folder.