How can I find the folder on my computer that is actually on my PC hard drive and not on One Drive?

Anonymous

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"I am subscribed to 1 TB OneDrive to backup my computer's D and E inner drives sized 979 GB and 883 GB respectively.

After having backup-ed the drives in OneDrive, the data reappear again in the C: OneDrive folder clogging it with 507 GB and not leaving room for additional programs. Why do I have the same data twice in the computer? Please, what solution is suggested?"

The OneDrive folder by default is on the C drive unless you move it to another drive. Your files are synced to the online OneDrive from that folder. If you choose to keep it on the C drive then use the "Free up space" option suggested in the reply above.

How to change the location of the OneDrive folder: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-location-of-your-onedrive-folder-f386fb81-1461-40a7-be2c-712676b2c4ae

Thanks but I am trying to remove my duplicates - except I want to select the folder on my actual computer, *not* my OneDrive and yet it's masking it as OneDrive, there is no way to select my actual folder on my pc, why? I want to back it up on hard drive because I don't trust OneDrive. How can I find the folder on my computer that are actually on my PC hard drive and *not* One Drive?

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65 answers

Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points

2024-08-23T19:26:46+00:00

The OneDrive folder is on your C drive and takes up space on the C drive. OneDrive is not on a separate drive. It's a folder.

To avoid OneDrive altogether and never worry about it again, I suggest you create Manila folders at C>Users>username>ManilaFolder and keep your files there. That means not using folders with colored icons but only Manila folders. Would you like to do that?

You can make new manila folders for Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos and place them in locations as shown below. Desktop is the only folder that you cannot make into a Manila folder. If you keep your files in those folders you will avoid OneDrive completely.

C>Users>username>Documents

C>Users>username>Pictures

C>Users>username>Music

C>Users>username>Videos
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Anonymous

2024-08-23T15:36:52+00:00

Thanks Craig. Is this correct then? Now you can see I have 883GB free on C drive - which C drive is this? Is it my local PC C drive or my "Onedrive C drive? Also I am running the synch in the task bar and been running it all night, it seems there is only 168GB downloaded of 731GB - where is this downloading exactly? Onto my local PC C drive or is it again going into some cloud? Please explain how this works, I still don't understand. All I want is for all my files to be held locally and securely on my C hard drive not in some cloud somewhere that I can't have access to the minute I disconnect the cloud. And I don't want to lose my precious data. Please help. Also apologies to the other user for somehow being tied up into another thread - I don't know how it happened, I thought it was AI as my entire chat disappeared. Thanks again, Paulina
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Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points

2024-08-22T23:18:40+00:00

Ugh, something totally weird just happened as I was logging out, I discovered that a bunch of files were dumped onto my desktop, without me moving them there. all I had were application icons and one folder and one picture, now everything got moved there, from where exactly and why? Was it because I disconnected and reconnected OneDrive? Will it happen again if I have to disconnect onedrive again for the syncing to finally finish and for the downloads to finally complete so that I have everything on my C drive instead? :-((:

Was it because I disconnected and reconnected OneDrive

Yes. Go to your Desktop folder and check out the sync icons. The Desktop folder is just like your other folders with all the sync icons.
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Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points

2024-08-22T23:13:29+00:00

Why was I dragged into this never ending email chain, couldn’t you start your own post instead tacking onto mine? Please take me off this, you are killing my inbox.

Scroll to the top of this thread in the Microsoft Community and click the Subscribe button. There, you will be able to select Unsubscribe.
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Anonymous

2024-08-22T22:22:34+00:00

Ugh, something totally weird just happened as I was logging out, I discovered that a bunch of files were dumped onto my desktop, without me moving them there. all I had were application icons and one folder and one picture, now everything got moved there, from where exactly and why? Was it because I disconnected and reconnected OneDrive? Will it happen again if I have to disconnect onedrive again for the syncing to finally finish and for the downloads to finally complete so that I have everything on my C drive instead? :-((:
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