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
    2020-06-06T23:52:59+00:00

    Hi I was wondering how to get my files back all my saved games was on it but when you guys switch it to photos and pictures only

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-02-28T19:27:45+00:00

    You should be able to go back in time to restore your files. They are kept for 30 days.

    When I lost a good part of my files, the Recycle bin restoration was useless due to the number of files there: it took about a half-hour to try to list all of the deleted files - and then the directory of the Recycle bin crashed! This happened repeatedly.

    But after some research, and several weeks of investigation, I was able to reach back a month and restore all of my missing files, although the restoration took about 20 hours! Even when OneDrive said my files were restored, they really weren't - it took another 10 hours of processing to actually finish restoring them.

    Unfortunately, as I pointed out, OneDrive support is poor. No phone support. No chat support. And e-mail support is often VERY slow.

    I recently reported a bug to OneDrive support. First, they tried to dismiss it. After I persevered, they said they'd look into it and get back to me. It's been a few weeks now and I still haven't heard anything.

    Conceptually, OneDrive is a truly great product, but support is another issue entirely.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-11-29T07:33:57+00:00

    Thanks Nicole, I appreciate the response and your exhaustive instructions.  But let's face it, too many people seem to have lost files on Onedrive and nobody can guarantee that it won't happen again.  Whether it was "their fault" or not is irrelevant, it just seems to happen too often. 

    Fortunately the best solution is also the simplest:  a regular backup, preferably to a local physical drive or possibly to a cloud (other than Onedrive of course, eg icloud, dropbox). NOBODY, including me, would ever have lost a single file by following this simple step. And yes, a fire can destroy one's computer AND local backups, but hopefully Onedrive would not lose the files on the same day too.  :-)

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-10-27T12:24:09+00:00

    My husband updated his computer and the option of backup to OneDrive was on. I personally don't use it. I use GoogleDrive because I can save a lot on there for free and I know for a fact it's there but anyway... He signed on today and all of his files were gone after supposedly doing a backup on OneDrive over the free plan amount. All of it gone. So safe to say, he had to factory reset his computer because he didn't know if any subfolders were taken as well and he wasn't about to give himself a migraine trying to look through everything to find out which ones were gone. 

    Safe to say, he won't be using OneDrive again.

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-10-16T18:50:23+00:00

    Sounds like a good suggestion. BUT... over the past year or so I've tried that. multiple times, but never get a response. No phone number to call, no chat line, and they don't answer e-mails. In all my years of dealing with companies, I've never run into one so deaf to its customers. Even though I have a list of people at Microsoft responsible for supporting it, I'm unable to get their e-mail addresses to contact them.

    Unbelievable. Which goes back to my first post where I say it appears they are out of business.

    Too bad... conceptually OneDrive is a great and very useful product.

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