OneDrive automatically deleting files from OneDrive folder

Anonymous
2018-05-22T21:43:34+00:00

The OneDrive forum appears to have been locked, so I am trying this one.

I moved some large files (photos) to my OneDrive folder to share between PCs and left them synchronising.  When I came back to check on their progress, the files had disappeared from the PCs.  Looking at the OneDrive window it shows them being added to Onedrive then mysteriously being removed a few minutes later.  What on earth is going on?    I tried Ctrl & Z to see if it could undo the removal.  The files looked as if they were being restored - but just disappeared again.  It's a good job I noticed, otherwise I could have lost these files forever.  I can't afford to have my important files just disappearing like that.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-07-23T15:23:56+00:00

    My new storage location is apparently now the OneDrive Recycle bin. 40,000 files are send there per day. To think I just moved from GoogleDrive to OneDrive for my business. Next option is DropBox.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-24T08:37:53+00:00

    Over two years later since this thread was created and OneDrive still has the fundamental flaw around it's version control and deleting files. I still regularly do this:

    1. Snapshot a virtual machine (or take an image of a PC)
    2. Work on VM (or PC) for several weeks/sometimes months
    3. Restore VM back (or restore image) to several weeks/months ago

    Bang - restored version assumes it's master and randomly deletes new/newer files and/or overwrites newer versions with old. Had an example just last week. The folder that I install software from is in my OneDrive. Commissioning a new laptop and Adobe Acrobat failed to install - half of it's files missing.

    This happens so often (i.e. nearly every time) that I'm totally paranoid about restoring VMs or images. I make sure I have backup of my OneDrive, turn the internet off, restore and then unsync OneDrive before reconnecting the internet.

    In many cases, I also have Google Drive and Dropbox synchronising on the same computers. Never a problem with versioning...

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-25T21:04:13+00:00

    This just happened here, but a notice popped up and an email arrived a few minutes later warning a large number of files had been sent to recycle bin at 9:09pm

    I was nowhere near them so how on earth did that happen.

    They seem to have restored OK.

    I did notice some kind on internet slow down so had rebooted router about then, could that have caused it if it was trying to check sync just as I shut it down?

    That really ought not to happen surely but a clue as to what's going on.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-25T21:15:39+00:00

    I don't think that shutting down had anything to do with it.  When it happened to me multiple times, I had not shut down or restarted or anything out of the daily ordinary stuff.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-19T16:32:40+00:00

    Likely Solution:

    Hey there, I know this is an old thread, but still a current problem.  Please check and see if you have any folders synced in your OneDrive agent from SharePoint that is a child or nested folder of another folder synced by your OneDrive agent from SharePoint.  The reason this happens is that your have synced a parent folder and child folder.  Lets assume you have two synced folders in your OneDrive agent.  FOLDERA and FOLDERB where FOLDERB is a nested folder within FOLDERA on SharePoint (for example DOCUMENTS\FOLDERA\FOLDERB.) In File Explorer your OneDrive agent displayes the following folders: 

    YOUR ORGANIZATION SHAREPOINT (The little office building icon)

       SITE - FOLDERA

                   >FOLDERB

       SITE - FOLDERB  

    When you drag a file in FOLDERB via File Explorer, it gets uploaded to SharePoint under FOLDERA\FOLDERB\NewFile.txt.   FOLDERA from you computer then syncs and does not have the file present and deletes it from SharePoint, then updates FIOLDERB and appears to delete the new file immediately.  

    Try to remove one of the synced folders (The parent or the child) and try again to see if the uploaded file now persists.

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