Onedrive is horrible, invasive and impossible

Anonymous
2023-02-09T16:57:08+00:00

Without my knowledge or consent, when I plugged in my new Dell computer and signed in to my MS 365 account, all my files were put in a cloud including copies of driver's licenses, passports, and family medical records. I thought okay, I'll just take them out of the cloud, which as we now understand also deletes them from the desktop.

I have gone back and forth about a dozen times in emails with MS techs. Some of their advice caused all of my files to disappear from my computer. I asked repeatedly if there is a way to choose what to backup and got no answer from MS. I've had a tech at my home twice, and he finds there is no way to manually backup or choose what files to backup. We decided to quit onedrive. I now have duplicates of files and paths still pointing to onedrive, so I will have to get more help with this. Research that I have been working on for years has been convoluted and possibly lost due to multiple duplicates.

I've been working from home for over 30 years and have never had problems like this. I'm used to figuring out solutions, but this is beyond absurd. I simply bought a new computer to replace my 10-year-old machine and am now in this nightmare.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2023-11-01T06:34:15+00:00

Thanks for this, VJA142. I wish I had seen these before I turned on my new PC. After watching the video you suggested and Leo's The Problem with OneDrive Backup, I'm less confused and beginning to wrap my head around it. I don't use the "Documents" folder and have individual folders on my desktop where I save things, but I get the gist.

Good suggestion too about automatic updates. I have always paused updates for several weeks and do one computer at a time to manage the nasty surprises.

Hi Enerak, glad you found Leo’s YouTube videos Re OneDrive helpful, I know I sure did, the light finally came on for me. He also has a web page (ask Leo.com) where he posts articles with links to his videos. The replies to his OneDrive articles are like this forum, full of people (including some IT types) who are all experiencing issues with OneDrive.

What’s crazy is that we all PAID for this Microsoft software, with many of us having invested in new computer hardware, only to turn on our PC’s and have our digital lives literally scrambled and yanked inside out.

I’m glad we’ve had this forum to vent & share info!

Thanks, Vikki

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-10-01T00:08:34+00:00

    So sorry this happened to you. I turned off onedrive for several months and then decided to turn it back on and use portable drives for my work, which cannot be put in a cloud. The tech came back out to help me with this because it's so confusing. It sounds like you are much more computer savvy than I am. Using portable drives is inconvenient and would be unnecessary if MS simply let us choose what to put on onedrive.

    I was so stressed about it that I ended up using separate portable drives to back up my old and new computers and also backing stuff up to a laptop. I hope whatever has been deleted by onedrive will be backed up on the portables because I can't lose the family history research I've been working on for 10 years. The thing that saved me was paying the $200 for a year of Geek Squad when I bought the computer, but honestly even the techs are baffled by Windows 11 and onedrive. Initially I had thought there would be a logical fix for onedrive, and the actual MS techs gave me bad advice that led to everything being deleted off my desktop.

    Hope you can resolve the issues and get some sleep.

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  2. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-09-30T21:19:16+00:00

    Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders are part of OneDrive when sync is ON at Settings > Sync and backup > Manage backup. That's what people are complaining about since OneDrive can grab those locations causing that huge upload.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-09-30T14:24:09+00:00

    Make a map in C, where Onedrive can't go. Transfer all private content to that map. Delete them from Onedrive. Try to make a new map outside Onedrive, My Pictures. Eventually transfer to that map, or disable onedrive.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-09-24T16:05:32+00:00

    I wont appear to me using OneDrive in PT-BR has no option like that, also to make the "download all files" the connection speed of download and upload wont pass 1.3 mb/s even with the speed limit off, and the only way it would let me surpass it is if I could edit the limit speed over the 125kb/s that this **** app is lock on and wont let me edit.

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