Note: The dates used in these instructions are examples only. To comply with Cedarville's retention policy, please refer to the separate retention policy Excel sheet to determine what dates you should use in this process.
Use the links below to quickly jump to a section in this article:
OneDrive
- Go to my MyCU, and sign in with your Cedarville account.
- Search for OneDrive, and click [Access OneDrive].
- Navigate to the folder that holds the files you want to delete.
- Copy and paste this into the search bar: LastModifiedTimeForRetention:<2024-04-21 (* .docx OR .pdf OR .xls).
- Replace the date with the date of the newest document you want to delete.
For example, if you want to delete all files five years old and older, type the date it was five years ago.
- Make sure that the drop-down menu on the right side of the search bar says "Current folder".
- Press [Enter] on your keyboard to search.
- Press the empty check circle to the left of where it says "Name" to select all the files that appeared in the search.
- Press [Delete] near the left corner of the page.
Note: If you don't see the delete button, it may be because you have selected some documents that you don't own.
- If you see a pop-up asking if you're sure, press [Delete].
All deleted files will make their way to the recycle bin. They will be permanently deleted after 93 days.
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Google Drive
- Go to Google Drive, and sign in with your Cedarville account.
- Click on [My Drive] on the left side of the page.
- Click on the advanced search icon on the right of the search bar.
- In the "Location" section, click on the drop-down menu, and click [More locations].
- Select the folder that holds the files you want to delete.
- Press [Search].
- In the search bar, indicate the type of files you want to delete.
If you want to delete all documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets, type this: type:documents type:PDFs type:spreadsheets.
- Press [Enter] on your keyboard to search.
- In the "People" drop-down menu, hover over your account, and then press [Owner].
Now, only the files you own will show up.
- In the "Modify" drop-down menu, press [Custom Date Range].
- In the "Before" field, indicate the newest document that you want to delete.
For example, if you want to delete all files five years old and older, click on the date it was five years ago.
- Press [Apply].
- Select all the files that appeared in the search.
Mac: Press [Cmd] + [A] on your keyboard.
Windows: Press [Ctrl] + [A] on your keyboard.
- Press [Delete].
- If you see a pop-up asking if you're sure, press [Move to trash].
All deleted files will go to the trash folder. They will be permanently deleted after 30 days.
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Gmail
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Go to Gmail, and sign in with your Cedarville account.
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If there are some emails you want to save but are within the date of emails you will delete, assign a label to those emails.
To do this, press the plus icon next to "Labels" on the left side of the page.
Name the label whatever you want to, and press [Create].
Now, select the emails you want to keep, and assign them to that label (see video if necessary).
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Copy and paste this into the search bar: before:2014/04/23.
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Replace the date with the date of the newest email you want to delete.
For example, if you want to delete all emails ten years old and older, type the date it was ten years ago.
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After the date, copy and paste this: -label:name-of-label.
In the place of "name-of-label", type the name of the label you created in step #2. Make sure to add a hyphen before "label". Also, add hyphens in the place of spaces, if your label name has spaces.
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Press [Enter] on your keyboard to search.
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To delete all the emails that appeared in the search, press the empty checkbox to the left of the screen.
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Press [Select all conversations that match this search].
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Press the [Delete] button.
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When you see a popup asking you to confirm, press [Ok].
All deleted emails will go to the trash folder. They will be permanently deleted after 30 days.
If you have further questions, this resource has many helpful articles that you can use to your benefit.
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Mac
- Open the [Finder] app located on your toolbar.
- Click on [Downloads].
Note: If you have files in [Desktop] or [Documents], you may need to repeat these steps for those folders.
- Navigate to the folder that holds the files you want to delete.
- Type a single space in the search bar to get the search options to appear.
- Click on the plus icon to the right of the page.
- In the first drop-down menu, click [Last Modified Date].
- In the second drop-down menu, click [Before].
- In the field after that, type the date of the newest file you want to delete (MO/DY/YEAR).
For example, if you want to delete all files five years old and older, type the date it was five years ago.
- Click on the plus icon again.
- In the first drop-down menu of this setting, click [File Name].
If that doesn't show up for you, press [Other] and scroll until you find "File Name" to enable it.
- In the second drop-down menu, click [matches].
- In the field after that, indicate the type of files you want to delete.
If you want to delete all documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets, type this: .docx OR .PDF OR .xls.
- Click on a blank space below the search options bar to deselect the search bar.
- Press [Cmd] + [A] on your keyboard to select all the files that appeared in the search.
- Press the options icon near the top right of the app.
- Press [Move to trash].
- If you see a pop-up asking if you're sure, press [Delete].
- Open the [Trash] app located on your toolbar.
- Press [Empty].
Note: You MUST manually empty your trash bin in this case. Otherwise, the deleted files may stay in your trash bin for a very long time.
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Windows
- Open the [Files Explorer] app.
- Press [This PC] located on the left side of the app.
- Press [Windows (C:)].
- Open the [Users] folder, and open the file with your username.
- Navigate to the folder that holds the files you want to delete.
- Copy and paste this into the search bar: datemodified:<=04/11/2019 kind:documents.
- Replace the date with the newest document you want to delete.
For example, if you want to delete all files five years old and older, type the date it was five years ago.
- Press [Enter] on your keyboard to search.
- Once all the files in the search have loaded, click once on the first appearing file to select it.
- Press [Ctrl] + [A] on your keyboard to select all the items that appeared in the search.
- Right-click anywhere on the selected files, and press [Delete].
- If you see a pop-up asking if you're sure, press [Yes].
- Open the [Recycle bin] app by searching for it on your computer.
- Press [Empty Recycle Bin].
Note: You MUST manually empty your recycle bin in this case. Otherwise, the deleted files may stay in your recycle bin for a very long time.
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