Verifying & Reducing a Moodle Course's Export Size for Canvas Migration


When trying to Backup an entire course, and its content from Moodle, for the purpose of migrating (importing) that course into Canvas, there are limitations on how much data can be contained within a Canvas course. Currently Canvas has a maximum course size of 2 GB.

This limitation requires users to first verify how large (how much data is included) in the original Moodle course that they are trying to migrate over. In turn, users may need to take measures to reduce the overall Moodle course size before Backup and migrating it to Canvas

This article will cover how to determine the overall size of a Moodle course Backup while also providing some guidance on how to reduce the overall course size to allow for a successful migration into Canvas.

Verifying & Reducing a Moodle Course's File Size for Migrating to Canvas

This article is broken into two sections. The first section provides guidance on how to Verify Moodle Course Size to determine if the course exceeds the Canvas maximum course size of 2 GB.

The next section, Reduce Moodle Course Size, will provide suggestions on how to reduce the overall size of a Moodle course (under 2 GB) to allow for the successful migration of that course content into a Canvas course.

Verifying Moodle Course Size

To verify the Moodle course size, instructors will need to create a complete Backup file of the course using the standard Backup portion of the Backup and Restore course copy process.

  1. Backup the entire course using the instructions in the "Creating a Backup File of a Moodle Course" article.
  2. On the Restore page that appears after backing up the course, find the Course backup area section.
  3. Under the Time column, find the most recent date and time listed to identify the Backup file that was just generated. These files are a MBZ file type.
  4. Under the Size heading, find the full size of the backup file.

If the size of the Backup file is under 2 GB, move forward with migrating that course as-is. If the size is over 2 GB, refer to the "Reduce Moodle Course Size" section of this article for further guidance on how to clean up the course prior to migrating.

Refer to the "Copying Moodle Content Manually Using Backup and Restore" article for more information on how this Backup and Restore process works for capturing and migrating content over to other courses.

Reducing Moodle Course Size

If the course Backup file exceeds 2 GB, steps will need to be taken to reduce the course's overall size before it can be migrated to Canvas.

Some suggested content to consider moving out of a Moodle course to aid in cleaning up a course prior to migrating it are:

Instructors with concerns about content retention can first copy the entire course into a Moodle project space to ensure all original content is retained there. Refer to the "Creating a WolfWare Projects Space and Moodle Projects Course" article and the "Using the Course Copier" section of the Copying Content From One Moodle Space to Another" article for guidance on how to create a Moodle Project space and copy a course into it.

Instructors can also consider moving individual content items into other more permanent storage locations. For video and audio files those can be stored within Panopto under a users My Folder. Refer to the "Uploading Video Files to Panopto" article for steps on how to move these file types.

For other file types users can consider moving those to their NC State Google Drive for future use. Review OIT's "Google Drive" article for more details about Google Drive storage limits and other helpful resources on managing content in Google Drive.

Additional Resources

Copying Moodle Content Manually Using Backup and Restore (DELTA Knowledge Base)

Backup and restore FAQ (Moodle Doc)

For additional assistance, please contact the LearnTech Help Desk at learntech@ncsu.edu or (919) 513-7094, or via the Get Help form on the DELTA Knowledge Base.