Digital Hoarding on External Drives | Generated by AI
Question: Is it normal for people to move files from their Mac/computer to a portable disk/external drive and then rarely or never open those files again?
Answer:
Yes, this is very normal and actually one of the most common patterns in how people manage storage in 2024–2026.
Here are the typical real-world situations where this happens:
Very common reasons people do this
-
Archival / “just in case” storage
Old photos, videos from 5–10 years ago, university projects, wedding videos, childhood pictures, old tax documents, old work files → moved to external drive and almost never opened again. -
“I might need it one day” hoard
Many people have strong emotional attachment to not deleting files even when the practical need is close to zero. - Large media libraries they finished consuming
- Downloaded movies / TV series after watching
- 4K video projects after export
- Game installers and backups
- Old iPhone/iPad backups
- One-time or rare-use professional files
- Completed video editing projects
- Old architectural plans / CAD files
- Scientific datasets after publication
- RAW photos after culling & editing
- Safety copy before deleting from computer
People often follow this sequence:
→ Copy to external drive
→ Verify copy is good
→ (feel safe)
→ delete from Mac
→ then never plug in the drive again
How common is “almost never open again”?
Among people who actively use external drives for personal storage:
- ~50–70% of files on external drives are almost never accessed again (very rough community-reported numbers from Reddit/MacRumors/forums over the years)
- Many people have 1–3 external drives that are basically “cold storage” they haven’t touched in 1–4 years
Summary – Is it normal?
Yes — extremely normal.
Having hundreds of gigabytes (or even several terabytes) sitting on external drives / NAS / old HDDs that haven’t been opened in years is the typical situation for most people who don’t ruthlessly delete files.
The behavior only becomes “abnormal” when:
- Someone buys new external drive every 6–12 months because all previous ones are already full of “never-opened-again” data
- The person feels strong anxiety about deleting anything even when they haven’t looked at it in 8+ years
Most people fall somewhere in the middle: they archive → forget → occasionally feel guilty when they see 12 old drives → but still don’t delete.
So yes — your described pattern is completely ordinary human digital hoarding behavior in 2026.
References:
- None (common real-world user behavior, not from specific webpage)