The HIDDEN TRICK to reduce your MOODLE course backup file size

How to Reduce Your Moodle Course Backup Size: A Simple Tip You Might Be Missing

When working with the Moodle LMS, course management often involves not just creating content, but also efficiently backing up and exporting courses. If you’ve ever been involved in course exports, you know that Moodle allows you to back up a course along with all its content — including student data, images, documents, and other resources.

However, there’s an important detail that many course creators overlook: unused files can quietly bloat your backup sizes, even if they’re no longer visible in the course. Let’s dive into why that happens and how you can easily fix it.

Hidden Files Lurking in Your Course

During course development, it’s common to upload multiple images, documents, or resources while experimenting with layouts and designs. Over time, you might remove content from the visible pages, but Moodle often keeps those files stored in the background.

Even though students can’t see or access these unused files, they are still included in course backups — making your backup files unnecessarily large.

A Real Example

Let’s walk through a real-world example:

  • Course Name: Example 1
  • Original Backup Size: 30.2 MB
  • Visible Content: A simple page with just four images

At first glance, four images shouldn’t account for over 30 MB. Curious? Here’s what was discovered:

By going into the course settings and using Moodle’s Manage Files feature, we could see that there were five images listed, not four. One of these images was marked as an “Unused file,” and — here’s the kicker — it was an 11 MB file!

That’s a huge amount of space taken up by a file that isn’t even in use anymore.

How to Find and Remove Unused Files

Here’s the simple process to clean up your Moodle course:

  1. Navigate to the page where you suspect unused files might exist.
  2. Click on Settings for that page.
  3. Scroll down to the content section and find the Manage Files button (an often-overlooked feature).
  4. In the file manager, look for the section labeled Unused Files.
  5. Select any unused files you find and click Delete Selected Files.
  6. Save your changes.

That’s it!

The Result

After removing the unused 11 MB file and re-backing up the course:

  • New Backup Size: 20 MB
  • Space Saved: 10 MB

And this was just from cleaning up one page! If you go through the entire course systematically, you could save even more space.

Why This Matters

Reducing your backup size isn’t just about saving disk space:

  • Faster uploads and downloads when transferring courses between Moodle servers
  • More efficient backups (especially if you schedule them regularly)
  • Cleaner course management — fewer hidden files to worry about later

If you plan on sharing, migrating, or simply archiving your Moodle courses, keeping your backups lean and clean will make the whole process smoother.

Final Thoughts

Next time you’re prepping a Moodle course for backup, don’t forget to check for hidden unused files. It’s a simple trick, but it can make a huge difference!

If you found this tip helpful, make sure to like, subscribe, and check out the available courses linked below. I’d love to see you inside one of them and help you further on your online education journey.

Thanks for reading,
Chris Richter