OneDrive Files Disappeared

Anonymous
2018-09-07T20:00:55+00:00

A series of folders are all empty! All of the files are missing. The folders and subfolders are present, but all the files in these folders and subfolders are simply gone. What is particularly odd is that all of these folders have a Date Modified within a very tight range, between 8:59 and 9:19 AM on 8/8/2018:

Trying to recover the files in the OneDrive on-line Recycle Bin, you can see there's a gap between 7/30 and 8/9, where there are no deleted files.

These are very important client files, and we need to recover them. I can't identify anything on our end. Does Microsoft have extended deleted file support?

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-22T15:12:54+00:00

    I have files missing that somehow had been 'deleted' over thirty days ago. What is this? how do i recover these precious files? it's like they were deleted off my computer without even notifying me..... FIX THIS NOW..

    I have a similar experience. I have wrongly trusted OneDrive but have learnt that dont. You are fine until all of a sudden you have lost your files. Microsoft and so Office can not be communicated with. They sit behind a thick wall of AI and do not seems to care neither wanting to communicate.

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  2. Craig Long 18,635 Reputation points
    2019-10-16T04:04:16+00:00

    Same has happened to me. Luckily I'm making copies to an external drive. What I notice is that those folders that I don't use as much, those are the ones losing data, so I don't notice, until the one day I go into the folder and find like many here describe, that the folder is there but the content is gone!! I love to use OneDrive but this is becoming very concerning. What is going on?

    Check Windows 10 "Storage Sense" at Settings > System > Storage.  Scroll down to OneDrive and you'll see that with "Storage Sense" enabled One Drive will "Remove unused cloud-backed content" which will remove unused local files and make them online-only.  So perhaps you should turn off "Storage Sense" if enabled.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-10-08T21:37:30+00:00

    I have concluded from reading posts and my own experience that I should trust NONE of the cloud (=someone else's hard drive over which you have zero control)  based systems, but only frequent backups to a local physical storage medium kept separate from your computer(s).  Pretty sad to have to say this in (almost) 2020, but maybe systems have become too complex to be reliable?

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-07-20T18:48:41+00:00

    The odd thing is for me that it did not only disappear from my OneDrive, but also from the folder that I saved locally shortly before on my desktop of my laptop... 

    Could that have anything to do with the cause?

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-07-20T18:41:23+00:00

    Hi all,

    I experienced the same issue less than an hour ago. 

    Are there any things you recommend on trying to recover the lost files? They're suddenly gone and I really need them back :/ Have worked for a month on a Python script that's now gone 

    Thanks in advance

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