Why is OneDrive so terrible?

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.

Despite Microsoft promoting OneDrive as a cloud back up system, OneDrive is not and never was intended to be a back up system. It's an aggressive data capturing system based on Microsoft's attitude of dictating to it's customers - something which appears to be the norm these days.

What the majority of hapless unfortunates who constitute OneDrive's enforced users haven't realised - and this originally included me - is that when OneDrive automatically moves all files to the OneDrive cloud, it is saving those files AS BEING THE ORIGINAL ITEMS. i.e. the originals are NOT stored on your P.C., they are stored in OneDrive - the files on your P.C. are the copies. And there is NO backup. This is the antithesis of a file back-up system. No wonder people are confused given how Microsoft promote this system.

Unfortunately, this arrangement makes it very easy to delete files locally and, unwittingly, have that operation synchronised to the OneDrive cloud which means any files deleted from the local documents folder on your PC will be deleted locally AND from OneDrive (as the ORIGINAL FILES) as it re-syncs. Those files are now GONE. Permanently.

Similarly, if a "master user" (by that I mean a person who has shared a OneDrive file of theirs with another person for work collaboration, or to share family photo's, for example), shares a file with another person from their OneDrive, and that other person deletes a file from the shared OneDrive access, that file will be deleted from OneDrive (as the original), as well as locally on the master users PC if synced. Again, GONE. Permanently.

Once you are aware of this set up, the drawbacks are blindingly obvious. So, WHY, Microsoft?

One drive is the most unintuitive, intrusive piece of absolute garbage "backup" software you can imagine.

I have saved files to my desktop on my PC.

One drive backs up those files To the cloud. (Or so any reasonable person would assume).

I no longer want these files backed up as my One drive is full, so I go through and remove them from my "backup" on One Drive.

Excellent, now I seem to have space to use the One drive for something else.

I go back to my desktop to finalise and organise the files I had saved to my desktop.

I CANT FIND THE FILES AND MY DESKTOP IS COMPLETELY RUINES BECAUSE ONE DRIVE DEEMED THE ENTIRE THING AS ITS OWN DOMAIN.

ABSOLUTE LOAD OF GARBAGE, INTRUSIVE, HIGHLY UNINTUITIVE AND WORST OF ALL, HAS A HUGE POTENTIAL FOR DESTRUCTION OF DATA.

DO NOT USE ONE DRIVE. IT HAS A FAR HIGHER CHANCE OF DESTROYING YOUR DATA OR MOVING IT WITHOUT USER INPUT AT ALL.

THIS DOES THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT ANY REASONABLE PERSON WOULD EXPECT OF SUCH A PROGRAM.

The thing that pisses me off the most about OneDrive is how it's built into the filesystem. If I want to find my desktop, why do I have to go to Users/OneDrive/Desktop? It's so frustrating. I don't want OneDrive automatically built in to my file system. I'd much rather have it be an app like every other cloud service, because it can be useful, but I hate the way MS did it.

Once consumers data gets sucked into ONE DRIVE madness....they are afraid to make a move, in fear of losing data in the process.

So they suck it up and pay for storage untill they figure it out.... but they dont figure it out.

I know, I'm there.

It's a bad system, I might even refer to it as a scam.