Why is OneDrive so terrible?

Anonymous
2024-03-30T14:40:28+00:00

Why would MS think that anyone would want the entire contents of their personal hard drive to be uploaded to a cloud? And further, why would it make sense to delete the local files if someone deleted them from the cloud? In what world does this make sense. It is a poorly designed system and it's a huge violation of privacy of your customers. I have nearly lost all my files because I "deleted" them from OneDrive. I guess I stupidly thought that my local files were safe, as I did not try to delete them. OneDrive, in its ineptitude, decided for me that since I didn't want them on some server somewhere, that I must not need them at all.

Please move to an opt-in model instead of the current opt-out model. And upon opting in, there should be a tutorial of the functionality of the software. A tutorial that an idiot can understand. And it should default to sharing a single folder, not the entirety of a computer.

If it was designed this way to artificially increase "usage" of the terrible software, you did a great job. But you increased usage to impress whoever at the cost of your customers' happiness and at the cost of their privacy. As a basic rule, people don't like their personal possessions (including data) being taken without their knowledge or consent. If you are going to steal our data anyway, at least be sneakier about it.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-06-16T07:24:23+00:00

    Even more insidious, is that just after a recent Windows 10 update had installed (June 2025) it showed a full screen notification trying to persuade me to connect my phone to my PC, change my browser to the one nobody wants (Edge, see below) and "set up a backup". It also added a big "Setup a backup" tile in a prime spot on the Start menu, which of course I closed/canceled immediately. What is wrong here is that they refer to OneDrive as simply a backup system, when what they are trying to do is needlessly sync my entire \Documents folder (not that I have ever used their annoyingly stupid default filing system) to OneDrive, charge me when I run out of cloud space, while making me believe I will have made a "safe" second copy of my files. And don't get me started on the Taskbar search icon (which I rarely ever use), to be confronted with a whole bunch of irrelevant Microsoft advertisements. That, and Edge's default home page full of Microsoft's biased selection of "news" and celebrity "entertainment" ©r@p makes me wonder just how stupid the people at Microsoft have become. I am seriously looking at switching to Linux Mint on 14th October, when Microsoft try to hold me to ransom for using their existing product on an old PC, while unhelpfully shoving adverts and half-truths directing me towards their wildly overpriced hardware. Microsoft is going mad in its old age.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-10-26T16:54:12+00:00

    Absolutely--it's unethical and really frankly scandalous--even theft of IP.

    And absolutely textbook enshittification. The worst part is when your employer makes it happen and it destroys your work and workflow--doubling your workload and delaying your professional life by aeons. Uneffing believable bullcrap.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-10-24T18:46:59+00:00

    It's like video games. Create a problem and sell the solution. They've taken the ability to install without an internet connection. They did that because so many people use it to avoid OneDrive.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-09-16T20:38:45+00:00

    Your response was atrocious.

    "What you ought to have done is....." How utterly condescending when there is no actual information anywhere except Reddit on how to sort out the mess Microsoft has made of this useless piece of cloud storm.

    I followed your instructions on Windows 11 PC and none of the images on your link match my folder structure. I nearly lost all of my files because THIS IS NOT A BACKUP. I also spent hours moving everything onto an external hard drive and deleting the whole lot out of onedrive and THEN UNINSTALLING THIS ABOMINATION.

    What makes it worse is that it is a massive money scam.

    Because it goes out of its way to not let you choose, the only option for the undetermined is to PAY FOR MORE STORAGE. That will be effing right you lot are not going to get a single penny more. DELETE DELETE DELETE.

    Everyone who said this is a massive invasion of privacy is spot on.

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