One drive has messed up my whole PC. How do I get my files back on my PC, and switch off one drive forever. (Please dont answer a question I did not ask)?

Anonymous
2024-01-12T07:27:02+00:00

One drive asked me if I wanted to back-up my files, it does not back up, it steals them and puts them online and in the process loses lots of them and makes your whole document opening slower.

This is not what I wanted, and its not what it said it would do (back up)

I dont want it, it has messed up my whole PC.

How do I get my files back on my PC, and switch off one drive forever?

Please dont answer a question I did not ask, don't tell me about where they are stored and an online recycle bin, or green ticks or always keep on this device.

I just want to COMPLETELY reverse the operation.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-01-30T05:03:05+00:00

    There is NO OPTION to "Always Keep on this device". I've highlighted the 7 folders that

    are in the One Drive and right clicking only gives options to Save to Desktop (Create shortcut), Restore Previous version, ...the same options generally given when right clicking.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-01-30T04:17:56+00:00

    I completely agree with you. It was horrifying when setting up my new laptop to see my files going into a cloud. All MS said was "All your files, conversations, phone info, everything in your life basically will be stored in OUR cloud!" And I didn't know how to stop it.

    And now after seeing instructions on how to get them back there still is not an option to "Keep all file on this computer" as the directions said.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-01-30T04:14:15+00:00

    It would have been a great reply had there just Been the Option to "Keep files on this Drive". There are 36k files that I NEVER gave permission to be put in some cloud.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-01-15T20:24:53+00:00

    Hate One Drive, when I tried to keep on my computer, or pause, it will not let me mark the documents I don't want backed up, says One drive is running and can't do that at this time. when I finally found where to un sync, my documents folder and files are so messed up and/or missing, there will be a few files then another document folder, that has a few files/folders, then another document folder and another one drive. Probably now have t least 7 document folders and still cannot find all my files. I did not turn sync on, never wanted my stuff in the cloud. Total mess.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-01-05T16:44:28+00:00

    I too wish Microsoft would stop calling OneDrive a backup feature. I do not trust OneDrive to backup my PC. It does wonky things on occasion. On my primary PC OneDrive is set to “Always keep on this device“ so that the files are also stored on my PC as well in OneDrive. & I use “File History” to backup my primary PC to a secondary drive, so that I have a backup of OneDrive on a physical drive in my PC. That has already saved me once.

    On my other PCs I have set OneDrive to “Online-only”,  so that I do not store any files on those PCs. In other words, I cannot open them without an internet connection. I’ve seen instances where multiple PCs in the “Always keep on this device“ state have overwritten each other. Hopefully, placing the other PCs in the “Online-only” state will keep that from happening.

    OneDrive sure is handy, lot of moving parts though.

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