Accessibility statement

Filestore

Student with laptop

You have different options for saving your files, depending on your requirements.

Your personal filestore

As part of your IT account, you have your own personal filestore.

If you are logging on to a managed campus machine, your personal filestore is already mapped.

It's called Documents or the H: drive.

If you're using another machine, see Accessing filestores.

You can also save files with Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive on managed laptops. Google Drive is part of Workspace for Education, our main productivity tool at York, and the preferred choice for saving files. 

If you're using a University managed laptop, OneDrive is the default filestore option within Microsoft 365 apps (eg Word). It is also used to backup files saved locally in the Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders.

Sending & sharing files

Google Drive

Share your Google files or folders with individual people or groups:

DropOff Service

Easily and securely exchange files up to 20Gb with University staff and students or external people.

File transfer

Transfer copies of files between your computer's hard disk and your University filestore.

Memory sticks

Memory sticks are a useful and easy way to store and transport your documents.

However, they are easily lost or forgotten, so remember to back up your work, and never use them for confidential or sensitive information.

When you've finished saving your work, remember to use the Safely Remove Hardware function found on the right of the Windows tool bar. This will prevent your documents from becoming corrupted.

Email attachments

If you open and edit an email attachment, save it to your Documents folder before making any edits.

If you click Save without selecting your own folder to save it to, your attachment will be saved in a temporary folder and will be lost when you log off.

File access auditing service

The University holds a huge amount of sensitive data, which is subject to strict storage requirements.

The file access auditing service can enable you to satisfy these compliance requirements.

Backups

Accidently deleted a file? Don't worry, we may still have a copy of it.

Shared filestore

We offer shared filestore known as Storage for departments, research groups, etc.

If you're unsure how to use shared filestore for your department/project, or need advice on choosing between Storage and Google Drive, please get in touch with the IT Support for advice.

Google Drive

Share Google folders with individuals or groups:

Accessing filestores

How to connect to York filestores:

Accessing filestore from off campus

Virtual Desktop Service

When working off campus, the most secure way to access your files is via the Virtual Desktop Service.

This is the only way you should access files containing confidential or sensitive information when you're off campus.

Virtual Private Network

You can also connect to the Virtual Private Network, and then make it appear on your home PC in the same way as it does on campus. 

Once you've connected, map your filestore using the instructions in the section above.

File transfer

Transfer copies of files between your home computer and your University filestore.