Pin it, then clean it: one batch from every screen

Why a selection needs to outlive the screen

Real cleanups are never one list. A few oversized videos turn up on the cleanup screen, a handful of extra copies turn up under duplicates, and then the sunburst chart shows a whole project folder from 2023 you forgot existed. Each of those is a different view, and each view has its own selection.

DriveNest’s pinning is the missing basket. You pin items wherever you find them, the pins stay put while you move between screens, and at the end one Pinned list feeds one script.

How pinning works

• Pin from anywhere. Every file list in the app has a pin on each row, plus a pin in the header row that pins (or unpins) every selected item currently in view. The sunburst chart pins a folder from its callout, and the cleanup bubble chart pins a whole group.
• One list per cloud. Google Drive and OneDrive keep separate Pinned lists, because each runs its own kind of script. Switching cloud switches the list.
• It persists. Pins are saved on your phone by file ID and matched against the latest scan, so they survive closing the app and rescanning. An item that no longer exists simply drops out of the list.
• A file is pinned once. The same file can show up on several screens; pinning it on one lights the pin on all of them, and it appears once in the Pinned list.
• Duplicates keep a keeper. Pinning a duplicate group on the bubble chart pins every copy except the most recently active one, so you never pin away your last copy by accident.
• Exclusions win. Anything covered by a cleanup exclusion rule can never be pinned for cleanup.
• Pinning changes nothing in the cloud. It is a list inside the app. Nothing is touched until you generate a script, review it and run it.
• Every plan. Pinning and the Pinned list are available on the free tier too.

The walkthrough below uses OneDrive; the Google Drive flow is identical up to step 5, where the two clouds run the result differently.

Pinning from Cleanup targets

1Pin items from the cleanup list

Open the Cleanup screen and tap into a list, such as the cleanup targets. Sort by size or date, search by name, then tap the pin at the end of each row you want in the batch. Pinned rows turn orange.

To pin a lot at once, narrow the list with search, tick what you want and tap the pin in the header row: it pins every selected item in the current view. The Pinned (N) chip at the top keeps the running count.

Adding surplus copies from Duplicates

2Pin more from the duplicates

Switch to Duplicates and open a list. The folder toggle groups rows by their parent path, which makes it easy to pin the copy in the messy folder and leave the one in the tidy folder alone.

The pins from step 1 are still there — a file you already pinned on the cleanup screen shows its orange pin here too — and the Pinned chip keeps counting across screens.

Pinning a folder on the sunburst

3Pin a whole folder from the sunburst chart

Some waste is easier to see as a shape than as a list. On the sunburst chart, tap a segment to open its callout — size, share of the drive, file and subfolder count, last activity — and tap the pin next to the size.

This pins the folder itself, not a snapshot of its files. When the batch runs, the folder goes to the trash or recycle bin as one item, with everything inside it. If you also pinned files that live inside that folder, they are handled with the folder rather than a second time.

The combined Pinned list

4Review the Pinned list and pick a script

Tap the Pinned (N) chip on any file list. The list switches to your whole collection: the files from the cleanup list, the copies from duplicates and the folder from the sunburst, side by side, with the same search, sort and group-by-folder controls.

• Untick anything you want to leave out of this run without losing it; the partial selection is remembered next time you open the list.
• Tap a pin to drop an item from the collection for good.
• Clear pinned (the icon next to the close button) empties the list after a confirmation.

Then open Generate Script ▾. What it offers depends on what is ticked: Cleanup script is always there; Unshare script appears when a ticked item is shared; Revision cleanup appears when a ticked file carries stored versions. Next to it, Never suggest turns the selection into an exclusion rule instead.

5Review the script

This is the step where the two clouds differ. Either way, you see exactly what will be touched before anything is.

OneDrive: Execute and Script tabs

Google Drive: Apps Script, Bash or PowerShell

6Run it

Confirm: recycle bin, reversible

In-app run with Pause and Stop

After the run

• Pins are not cleared automatically. Removed items drop out of the Pinned list once they are gone from the scan data; anything you left unticked stays pinned for the next run.
• To start a fresh batch, open the Pinned list and tap Clear pinned.
• Deleted items keep using quota until the trash or recycle bin is emptied — see step 2 of the cleanup guide.
• Every in-app run is recorded in the action history.

Free to try, no ads. Pinning works on every plan, on Google Drive and OneDrive alike.

Frequently asked questions