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
    2023-11-01T03:49:34+00:00

    I turn the synch off and it automatically turns itself back on the next time I reboot my computer.

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  2. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-11-01T04:28:45+00:00

    I turn the synch off and it automatically turns itself back on the next time I reboot my computer.

    OH NO! That's not good. Turn the sync off at Manage backup and then uninstall OneDrive.

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  3. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-11-01T21:19:29+00:00

    Mention this thread to Leo if you want.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-02T13:19:02+00:00

    Good idea, Craig. I'm even more grateful for Leo's video because it helped me with a Windows 10 problem yesterday. I have an old laptop that I use mostly for dictation into Word and playing audio. While dictating and trying to save the document, there was a long pause and then MS was prompting me to sign in. I had the spinning blue circle for about 15 minutes. I checked options, save, and found that MS had at some point changed the setting to save to SkyDrive which I don't believe even exists any longer. I changed this and then after more waiting got something about your PC has experienced a problem, they were collecting information and would restart. Of course, most of my document was not saved and was now edit only. I was able to copy and paste what was there in order to edit it and had to redo what was missing. All of this caused me to lose about 90 minutes of time.

    The good news is the laptop seems to be working well now. Another day, another lost dollar due to Microsoft's invasive updates and mind-boggling nonsense.

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