The Problem With OneDrive Backup

THANK YOU! Your teaching style is fantastic. I have watched two of your OneDrive videos. Very, very helpful. Sadly, I ended up with two OneDrive accounts. Microsoft was totally unhelpful (what a surprise!) and I am afraid photos have been deleted from "all " drives. I will search your website for any previous discussions on merging two different OneDrive accounts.

Thanks for this video, Leo. This is the best explanation about OneDrive I've ever seen.

I've been trying to completely remove onedrive, but it keeps coming back like a stain on the carpet. I have been using the Windows10Debloat script.

Thank you Leo!! What a mess. Add to it the fact that I use iDrive as a backup, and for awhile I got iDrive and OneDrive confused. And I'm discovering that iDrive will NOT back up files that are in OneDrive. I started using OneDrive so I could easily access documents that I created on my laptop, but then had to work on from my tablet when my laptop was in for repairs. Somehow I couldn't easily access the docs from iDrive using my tablet, but could access them from OneDrive using my tablet. Now I need to figure out what to do!

Thank you for this. The one I find annoying is the desktop backup. Every time I make a desktop shortcut on Windows 11, it gets saved to OneDrive and appears on my Macbook Pro. OneDrive is great, but saving desktop shortcuts to the cloud is an annoying feature. Especially if you happen to need to reinstall Windows, all those shortcuts end up back on your desktop pointing to nothing.

This problem is extremely annoying and sometimes scary. I hope onedrive is just onedrive not taking our local file/holder onto onedrive cloud. thank you for explaining this

It’s done the other around. The shortcut document should have been created when you switch back up, not disappear

I am just wondering what is the difference between backup and syncing in one drive ?

great explanation, I was very confusing before

What files can and cannot be deleted

Great explanation !!!! This helped me resolve problems on a friend's laptop caused by OneDrive. Thanks for sharing this useful information. :)

I dislike OneDrive immensely. A good backup app should only make a copy offline and leave your data alone. There are many apps out there that can do that for you. Luckily, there is a way to thoroughly remove OneDrive from your OS, which I did as soon as I set up my machine. thoroughly

On a new pc I got so annoyed with onedrive giving me constant notifications and red crosses on files that I turned it off... and my entire desktop and docs vanished and got sucked into the onedrive folder leaving me with the shortcut.

Grateful that this video explains why. Unbeleiveably annoying that I have to put it all back myself (I have a cluttered desktop for a functional quick-access reasons), it's crazy that you can't reverse that action, and the 'Everything will be deleted' notifications are pretty sleazy imo

Since a month or so Windows 11 keeps bugging users to turn on this very invasive feature. You can click it away but a week later it is there again. Very annoying for sure.

I'm hoping I can lean on your expertise in this area because I'm having issues with this. I'm not a fan of cloud services because of the big security risks to personal data and it's a door to outside access. When onedrive was first introduced in Windows 10 (my os) I didn't realize it was storing desktop data automatically - I didn't approve it and was shocked to find my files in "their" cloud. I went through the process of deleting the cloud stored information and emptying the trash bin, then uninstalled the app in my computer programs - thinking that it would no longer be working in my computer. Today I was troubleshooting ssd storage and trying to free up space and found a bunch of Windows/onedrive folders in my C drive. So I went back and installed the onedrive app and to my shock my desktop files were still present in their cloud (even though I deleted them & the app) - what caused this? Is there any risk to removing these window files for onedrive, I need the space & I'd like to prevent the open door. Another problem is that one file, my garden fertiizers, keeps reappearing in the cloud onedrive - even after deleting it multiple times and emptying the data from the trashbin. I feel like I am experiencing a hostile takeover of my computer. There is NO onedrive icon in the hidden icons tab. I just want this program, it's affiliated files completely off my computer. They should never have added this to the framework of the OS without making it an independent app that you have to go to install it as a separate component. And yes, I am very confused!!! Thanks in advance if you can help!!!

Never knew how to properly use a computer. I have to keep buying a new computer just to keep my pictures and videos. Which I had your technology near me!

I don't like one drive or any "cloud storage.' The documentation on how to use it is very sketchy. I actually don't store anything in the documents folder, I create a data folder for each of the apps that require storage. Usually on D: drive I do as little as possible on C: drive.

Is there a difference in the user experience between One Drive for Business and the OD you are demonstrating in the video? The current proposal is to remove DropBox and migrate everything to OD.

What a fantastic video to explain why I've been going out of my mind - trying to transfer files from an old PC (Windows10) over to another PC Windows11) via a LAN connection. I've been watching freshly moved files from Documents to Documents disappear and reappear on the new machine in the Local OneDrive folder. I have wasted a full day fiddling with this. This video provided the answers as to what the #$%@ is going on. Bravo Leo! Amazingly helpful!!! QUESTION: If I turn off OneDrive Backup, can I count on it Staying Turned OFF? Will Microsoft turn it On with a subsequent 'Update'? For the first time in my life, I'm considering a drastic move to iOS. Crazy. BTW, I believe it was confusing for Microsoft to use the word itself; 'OneDrive', in the local path. The word, 'Drive' makes one think of a physical hard drive out in cloudspace - not a local path thing. This whole mess has been a constant source of vertigo. Again, thanks for helping us understand what's happening.

Thank you so much Leo, I thought I knew where I was up to, but after a minor problem with my PC, I reset the PC, safe in the knowledge my Manual Backup would be preserved, as would my Offline Backup, but the One Drive was a little hazy. Then I found the 1 TB HDD that I bought to speed up the PC, was so topped out with files from my One Drive, I had to really think, how did I de-link it before???? This description is very comprehensive. I work as a Technical Analyst Myself, so I know how tricky explaining complex tech can be and you have de-mystified it for me and (Probably millions ) of other people.
I'll be subscribing to your site, in the hopes of some other golden nuggets of information 🙂

Thank you. Very helpful.

I've been struggling with file locations, versions, and One Drive on several Windows machines at home. This clarified how it all works so now I can make a conscious decision on how to manage files and where to find them exactly. Thank you!

Very precise and to the point. Thanks Leo.

Thank you so much for explaining how One Drive works! I've been beside myself since I turned on backup thinking it was a good thing, and frantic after my business documents all disappeared! I didn't know what to do about it. I finally found them on One Drive, but when I worked on the documents on OneDrive (large Photoshop files or large MS Word docs), they were very slow and would stop frequently. So I started putting everything I was working on into the downloads folder for safekeeping. Yesterday I ordered a 5TB hard drive to handle my backups and I'm going to straighten out my files and turn off OneDrive forever. All it's done is take up precious time - and a lot of it - to manage my files. I am very disgusted with Microsoft for removing my files from my hard drive!! I thought they would be just backed up - not REMOVED!

Do all users on that PC have their files blended in OneDrive?

Mirror, Mirror on the wall... Apple's OS version of iCloud works almost 100% the same and confuses the heck out of Apple users as well. If you turn off iCloud's backup option, not called that BTW, you're going to have to find your returned files from the Cloud and move them just like Leo showed. Great explanation for Win users Leo. 🙃

I used onedrive since it was named skydrive. Since the start of skydrive it had few problems but now its getting updated to match the windows UI. I uploaded 2 TB and it took 1 to 2 months to upload that. If one day u wanna quit using onedrive tick off the setting in onedrive that's it. I belive its " make my files available online ". Click OK and that's it. Well my advice is u should never put anything on C: user otherwise... because C: is your file system and if u put ur files there ur pc would lag and all that cause it reads ur files while windows is loading.. so my advice is to make partition D: and put the main my documents and stuff there!. Even if u wanna use onedrive put it on D:. Never put it on C:. Just use C: for downloaded programs and use D: for large games... how to change onedrive for D:. Change the location of each folder of user on "C to D. Simple"

Great video, Leo, thanks. Microsoft makes things so complicated, always has.

OneDrive is not the only situation where folder names are used without their path. It can make it very easy to lose files, edit one file in multiple different places, etc. I use a Chromebook, so gdrive suits me better. I use a PC for MS Access files which work better local. I take care to always save to gdrive for most files. I use a backup tool to backup MS Access databases to gdrive.

i never use onedrive, it's stupid, i have my own servers

Excellent content. I've been using Windows since the late 80s and I've never understood what onedrive was doing or why. All I've ever wanted it to do was act as an addition storage drive that I could use to manually make backups of directories and files. Dropbox is a much better cloud storage utility but as you pointed out, if you have O365, you get a TB of onedrive.

This is such an excellent explanation. I was totally confused by what OneDrive backup was doing to my files and you made it very clear. Good job ... thank you!

Thank you so much for this video. I inadvertently used backup on my personal computer while being logged in to a workplace OneDrive account. What a nightmare when I saw all my personal documents stored on personal desktop uploaded to my workplace account

I don't know when this change has happened, but now when I install Onedrive (and choose to backup) it moves the original folders to Onedrive so the original documents folders ect disappear under user folder. So there won't be two folders, the local one disappears. So it is even more annoying.

This is a terrific explanation of OneDrive and OneDrive Backup! I seldom take the time to comment but I have been confused by this for a long time, and especially by Microsoft's insistence to turn Backup on, so that my newfound understanding deserves more than just a thumbs up. If you want to understand where your files are stored--and how they might "disappear" by accident--this video will probably answer your questions. It did for me. Thanks

One drive takes your desktop! And sucks up all your files…then when OneDrive is full, they ask you to buy more cloud space! OneDrive holds your pc as a hostage. If you don’t know how to move files from OneDrive..you will be plucked like a chicken! I removed the OneDrive app from my computers.

Great video and I do have it enabled. However, I have a Synology Nas that backs up those directories to the Nas including OneDrive via Cloud sync.

It would be better if the original documents folder under users is removed by Windows once OneDrive backup is turned on.

my understanding is the Onedrive folder is just an index of empty file names and not the files themselves which remain in the regular Doc folder as long as you set NO for Files On Demand (not local)

Wish I'd watched this before I turned on OneDrive backup! I'm subscribed to you, now.

I've been reading Leo's articles for many years. His explanations are always clear, easily understood.

Thanks Leo. You just saved me a day of waiting for my files to upload because I thought I’d lost them. Ended up buying more storage on one drive so I didn’t lose anything. Learnt a lot. Thank you.😊

OneDrive sux. With 500 end users and 500 computers to manage I tell people to copy their OneDrive to an external hard drive before they bring a computer in for service. That way, they get the 'merged' files saved and I can do my thing without worrying about data loss (by default we have OneDrive backup turned on). Guess what sux more? SharePoint documents. Guess what sux even more? Sharing files in a work environment. It's a total cluster f*

Great explanation Leo - thank you!

The problem is the user with the constant accept/yes/ press button mode , OD ask if you wish to backup the default folders of windows(Docs, Images, Music, etc).
The real problem for me is the innability to backup folder outside of the OD folder, Google Drive permit to add customizable Local folder backup and is not need move the backup folder to a central locatiom

OneDrive is NOT a backup. People who treat it that way are just asking for trouble.

Thank you! Liked and Subscribed! Great content!

THank You, I thought this was a problem and you explained it.

What's the difference between Account>Choose Folders and what you are demonstrating (i.e. Manage Backup) in OneDrive? Maybe you can articulate that.