Storage Space

storage facility While Canvas lives in the cloud, there are still limits to its storage capacity.

By default, each class is given 500 MB of space.

Given that you can store large video files in Panopto, this space is sufficient for most classes.

You can check your storage space usage by clicking "Files" on the Course Menu, and looking to the bottom left:

Canvas files storage indicator

Uploading Smaller Files

one large brown box and three small ones Oftentimes, storage issues are due to bloated files that just need a little slimming down.

In essence, we want to pick the properly sized "container" for the job.

Many images and video files are MUCH larger than they need to be for presentation in your Canvas class.

To ensure that you are preparing your files properly, BEFORE uploading them, please view the following guides:

Spring (& Fall) Cleaning

person vacuuming the floor We do not recommend that you make the “Files” area visible to your students, since Modules are a much clearer way to present content to students (and there are some complications hiding images used in Quizzes if you have Files visible to students).

But we do recommend that you go into the Files area every now and then (perhaps before or after each semester) and do some pruning of old files you no longer need.

For example, that Syllabus from 2018 can probably be deleted now … 😜

Also, if you've uploaded a ZIP file to Canvas, and have already uncompressed it within Canvas, you can delete the original ZIP file from the Canvas Files area.

What if I STILL have too much stuff?

cardboard box lot For some classes, even with regular deletion of old files and management of PowerPoint file size, you may find yourself nearing your storage limit.

In these cases, please submit a request to our Canvas Team (by clicking “Help” and then “Golden West - Submit a Ticket”).

We'll see if there might be any large files that need purging, and if you just really need more space, we can assign it to your class.