How downloaded guides and storage work

Not everything in a guide reaches the phone the same way. By the end of this page you will know what is always there, what waits until someone asks for it, what downloading a whole guide actually fetches, and how the app frees space without deleting a file another guide still needs.

Three ways content gets onto the phone

Synced every time. The text of every published article, checklist, quiz and guide intro, the guide structure, and the operator's own progress arrive with each sync. There is nothing to download and nothing to remove.

Fetched after each sync. Images (pictures inside articles, and cover and hero images) are pulled down one after another once a sync finishes, on whatever connection the phone has. If one fails it is simply tried again after the next sync.

Downloaded on demand. Heavy files wait to be asked for:

• A PDF attachment is kept the first time it is opened while online.
• A video or audio file has its own Make available offline button on the item, showing its size.
• A whole guide can be downloaded at once, which is what this page calls a pack.

A video or audio item that plays a hosted link, rather than a file uploaded to ROK, streams every time and cannot be kept offline.

What a guide pack contains

Tapping Make available offline on a guide collects every file its tree uses: the guide itself, its items, and its sub-guides and their items (guides nest two levels deep). That means images, cover and hero art, PDF attachments, video and audio. Before you start, the button shows an estimate; images often have no known size until they arrive, so they are counted separately.

The files download three at a time. Cancel keeps whatever has already arrived. If some files fail, the guide offers Resume offline download, and files already on the phone are skipped.

A pack is a snapshot of the guide when it was downloaded. If an author adds a video or PDF to the guide later, the guide still says Available offline but the new file is not fetched; download it from the item, or remove the pack and download it again. New images arrive anyway, with the after-sync fetch.

Wi-Fi only

Download over Wi-Fi only sits in Settings → Offline storage & downloads. It is off until you turn it on. With it on, a pack starts only on Wi-Fi; otherwise the guide says Downloads are set to Wi-Fi only — connect to Wi-Fi or change it in Settings. and you try again later.

Two limits are worth knowing. The check happens when the download starts, so a pack that began on Wi-Fi carries on if the phone drops to mobile data. And the switch covers guide packs only: a video saved from its own screen, and the images fetched after a sync, use whatever connection there is.

How removing a guide stays safe

Two downloaded guides often share files: the same PDF, the same diagram. Removing a pack (Remove on the guide, or the bin icon beside it in Offline storage) works out every file that guide uses, then every file each other downloaded guide uses, and deletes only the files nobody else needs. The guide's text, checklists and the operator's progress are never touched — a pack is files only.

Only other downloaded guides count. A video the operator saved from its own screen inside the removed guide is deleted with it. Images come back after the next sync; heavy media stays gone until someone downloads it again.

The storage screen

Offline storage shows Downloaded media, Free on device, and every pack under Offline guide packs with its size and file count. A pack that only partly finished reads Incomplete — open the guide to resume; a cancelled one reads Not downloaded yet.

Downloaded media counts the files guide packs fetched. Images from the after-sync fetch, PDFs opened once and videos saved from their own screen are on the phone too, but not in that figure. Clear all cached files deletes all of them — every cached image, PDF, video and audio file for the agency — while keeping the library and reading progress.

What this means in practice

• Download before you leave. See Download a guide for offline use; managing space is covered in Manage offline storage.
• Each agency has its own file store. Files kept for one agency are not reused for another, and clearing affects only the agency you are in.
• Files do not tidy themselves up. When content leaves the phone because it was withdrawn or deleted, its cached files stay. A downloaded guide that has been withdrawn shows as Removed guide; removing that entry does not free its files, because the phone no longer knows which files belonged to it. Clear all cached files does.
• For authors: every video you attach makes the packs that contain it bigger. Operators see the estimate before they download, but on a slow connection a video-heavy guide is the one they skip.