"The folder you tried to unselect contains the windows documents folder, which is an important folder in windows and is currently pointed to Onedrive"

Anonymous
2023-09-06T05:02:28+00:00

When I try to unsync any folder, this error message appears:

"The folder you tried to unselect contains the windows documents folder, which is an important folder in windows and is currently pointed to Onedrive"

This is a new thing that started happening over the weekend, as I use OneDrive on a daily basis.

Rebuilding all the folders and subdirectories are not an option since they are time-consuming and there is not enough space on my local drive (which is why I am using OneDrive and turning folders on and off).

Microsoft, please sort this out.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-11-23T02:39:32+00:00

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  2. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-11-23T02:32:03+00:00

    Do you have "Manage backup" on the "Sync and backup" tab? If you stop the sync I'm told that you can uncheck folders. I don't want to stop syncing so I haven't tried doing that. I'm not sure what will happen when stopping the sync and unchecking folders.

    I have a scroll bar on "Manage backup" and I see you don't have one. Perhaps your administrator has something to do with this?

    See this video: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-on-onedrive-backup-4e44ceab-bcdf-4d17-9ae0-6f00f6080adb

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  3. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-11-22T21:24:28+00:00

    Folders that are not selected at "Choose folders" cannot download from the online OneDrive and sync to your PC. Certain folders that are checked cannot be unchecked since they are not allowed to be removed from your PC.

    For some reason that I cannot explain, you can no longer uncheck any folders within the Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders. You must use the Files-On-Demand "Free up space" option to keep those files and folders from making local copies to your PC.

    So in File Explorer right-click and select "Free up space" on folders that you cannot uncheck.

    You can stop syncing your local folders to OneDrive at the OneDrive Settings > Sync and backup > Manage backup. But then you are not backing up these locations which is the whole idea of using OneDrive.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-19T04:37:13+00:00

    I doubt it. I've been a paying customer since 2018 and Microsoft still screwed me over.

    If you pay for your subscription, they won't use the money to hire competent engineers. They'll just use it to add useless new features (like force you to tell them why you're closing OneDrive) or to break existing features that were working fine (like what we're experiencing now).

    Don't become a paying subscriber if you've managed to avoid it so far.

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  5. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2023-11-19T00:43:31+00:00

    Windows did an update on my pc, and what do you expect the whole onedrive settings are messed up again. They automaticly added all folders in documents again to onedrive. Onedrive filled up its 5 gb, and then once the 5gb is filled up, you cant deselect anything or make any changes. Really messed up

    Microsoft wants you to become a paying subscriber for sure. (I'm trying to say this nicely)

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