How do I prevent my Documents shortcut from defaulting to OneDrive?

Question

How do I prevent my Documents shortcut from defaulting to OneDrive?

JannyG 0

I would like to save and retrieve documents from my lapto Document folder but it is defaulting to my Document folder on OneDrive.

Here is the Shortcut I created

"C:\Users\jsgri\Documents\Documents on laptop.lnk"

Here is where it's taking me:

C:\Users\jsgri\OneDrive\Documents

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

You need to turn off OneDrive's folder backup feature.

Look at the bottom-right corner of your taskbar, near the clock, and click the blue or white OneDrive cloud icon. Click the Gear icon (Help & Settings) and select Settings. Go to the Sync and backup tab on the left and click the Manage backup button. Turn off the toggle for Documents, along with any other folders you want to keep local. Confirm by clicking Stop backup or Keep local only when prompted.

Next, open File Explorer and go to C:\Users\jsgri\OneDrive\Documents. Select your files and press Ctrl + X to cut them.

Navigate to your local folder at C:\Users\jsgri\Documents and press Ctrl + V to paste the files there.

After confirming that the files are now in the local Documents folder, delete the old shortcut (.lnk) file if one was created. Your C:\Users\jsgri\Documents folder should then point directly to the local Documents folder rather than the OneDrive location.

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hth

Marcin

Answer 2

To stop Documents from defaulting to OneDrive, turn off OneDrive folder backup for Documents and then move the files back to the local Documents folder.

Select the OneDrive cloud icon in the notification area.
Select Help & Settings > Settings.
Open the Sync and backup tab.
Select Manage backup.
Turn off backup for Documents.
When prompted, choose whether to keep the files:
- only in OneDrive, removing them from the PC, or
- only on my PC, removing them from OneDrive.

After that, move any files currently stored under C:\Users\jsgri\OneDrive\Documents into the local Documents folder so the shortcut points to the laptop folder instead of the OneDrive folder.

If the goal is also to stop Windows apps from saving to OneDrive by default, change the default save behavior so files are saved to This PC instead of OneDrive when using Save or Save As.

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