This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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.
A Microsoft file hosting and synchronization service.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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.
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.
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.
Microsoft needs to fix this issue, Microsoft may call it a backup feature, but it is not.
Microsoft assumed we wanted to backup our desktop (and other stuff), without ever asking me. When I go into the OD app and unselected the option, OD did not know how to undo it. What it does instead is to remove the files on the Desktop and now the only copies are in OD. OD should delete the OD copy (because I unselected the option) and leave my Desktop copy alone.
The above directions do not work.
In File Explorer, I select OneDrive and then right click. "Always keep on this device" is not provided as an option.