Would it have been too much to simply add a button that says "Unsync"? How the hell did they mess something like this up? How couldn't they think that people would want to remove things from OneDrive only? It's such a simple yet fundamentally major design flaw that I can't wrap my head around it.
I think they just want you to fill up One Drive quickly so you will buy extra space. I think this is a really invasive and over-controlling app! I'm glad to have found this video!
@@gloriapinskerportraits4801 Exactly, I just upgraded to Windows 11 and I can no longer move my files to an external drive, so I am forced to either cave in and buy more space or spend hours looking at videos and information as to how to now move my files. It's actually making me think about learning how to use Linux and getting rid of Windows completely. Not only was the upgrade a downgrade to many applications, it somehow exposed my credit card information to Bangledeshi scammers and I'm not exactly sure how, but immediately after I upgraded, I had a pending charge to my account that said it was from Microsoft, and concurrently an email from a Bangleshi scam company that said thank your for updating your Norton antivirus, we will be charging your credit card $360. I'm overseas and it is the only credit card that I have and I had to cancel it. Thanks Microsoft. Plus, I think Bill Gates is a criminal who should be on death row.
Data should NEVER have left my PC and been placed on some public storage somewhere on the net, A). less my knowing and B). less my permission in the first place. This modern trend of intrusion and liberty taking is infuriating.
If you (know how to) use OneDrive you _do_ know, and placing your files in the OneDrive folder implies your permission. If you don't know how OneDrive works you won't place your files in the OneDrive folder. Solved.
Hey man… THANK YOU. The fix was a little simpler than I thought. I have tried in the past to do this, and had trouble. I did it again today, and no trouble. I hate OneDrive !! I like to organize my files in my PC exactly how I want them. On the hard drive. I only want CERTAIN things to be shared. And OneDrive just wants to gobble up everything then tell me “running out of space , buy more “. Nah… I’m not BUYING MORE ANYTHING. Anyway, thank you!
I just want to say that you are AWESOME! I have asked so many people how to do this and no one could offer successful advise or instruction. Thank you for being so easy to understand and easy to follow. YOU ROCK!!!
this has been giving me a ton of trouble, thank you so much for the solution!! it feels really shady that there isn't a more intuitive option, everything in onedrive feels clunky and convoluted. i wasn't even aware until recently that the things i was saving weren't saved directly to my pc, and the only thing that made it clear were the storage errors and the constant insistence that the only way to get more space was to buy more onedrive storage (which i by no means have a real need for, i have more than enough space on my pc). again, thank you!
Leo - Thanks so very much for explaining this in a clear and concise manner. I didn't realize items were going to a OneDrive storage - - UNTIL I began to get the message that my OneDrive was FULL! Then I noticed that I was getting ERROR messages on my files. I also noticed there were two Docs folder, but still didn't make a connection. WOW! How confusing! Again, many thanks!
Thank you ! You saved my Documents ! One drive blocked my email and my computer because I exceeded the size, but I never wanted to store my docs on one drive! I sent myself a test email, I received it in return that the file is full and impossible to receive it! Mind-blowing! Thank you Greetings from France !
OneDrive is over complicated. It's a backup service. It should just ask for folders one wants backed up and do it's job. Deleting files from the folder shouldn't remove them from OneDrive and vice versa. Microsoft has made this product act like an external hard drive.
This helps alot. This garbage program had enabled itself without my permision and was copying my pc's files to it for so damn long so glad to have it gone thanks!
Do you know if I save my documents to my D:/ drive instead of to my C:/ drive if they will then not be accessible to OneDrive? I think OneDrive is an invasion of privacy and it should ask before saving to the cloud.
@@sydneym.778 Typically, if you're saving anything to the D:/ Drive, you're getting ready to save it to a CD or DVD, as that's the default drive letter for a CD / DVD player.
The point is there is a limited amount of storage you can use on OneDrive before having to PAY for more. Watse of money. I have 200 GB left on my storage. I do not need One Drive. And if I see one more 'Storage is Full' notification I'm getting a new computer out of spite
Thank you so much -- so helpful! I find One Drive very invasive. I was appalled to find out that if you delete something from it, it disappears from your computer and all other devices! I prefer to pick and choose what gets saved to OneDrive.
This has bothered me for years and my files were always all over the place thanks to one drive. I finally consolidated everything and can find the files I need. Thank you
You are the best! I can't believe how simple OneDrive really is! I've been struggling with trying to understand how it works for years and in one simple video, you've made all the pieces of information I've been able to decipher on my own make sense! I will definitely be referring back to this video whenever I need a refresher. Thank you so much for clearing up the jumble that was in my head! 😃
I've spent two weeks trying to word the problem correctly to have this question answered. Found your video and was delighted to have my problem fixed. Thank you for the warning us about unlinking your PC from OneDrive and backing up your files. I decided not to do that. However, I have moved my files to my computer and emptied the recycle bin on OneDrive. Just over-joyed. Thanks again. 💕 ~*Shana
Well done. You have no idea what a pleasure it is to listen to someone who speaks English without a horrible accent in your case no accent at all, and without a lot of background noise and without repeating a lot of useless information I didn’t need to hear. I realize I just got through with a tremendous horrible run-on sentence, but I just wanted to say thank you for your help in such a clear concise way. Thank you
OMG, Its really helpful. my 7 GB file were uploading by mistake and I wanted to stop it in between. I searched many videos on youtube but it was not helpful then I got your video and this time also I was hopeless but surprisingly your video helped me. Thank you 1 Million times.
Hi Leo, I have another problem with OneDrive. Today, I just mistakenly clicked YES to back up my Documents folder in my PC to my OneDrive, which I thought the system would allow me to choose which file, but it happened to be all the files in my Documents folder. The problem is, once I did that, there is no turning back, which I tried many times to unsync OneDrive, unlink it as well as to stop back up the folder. What happened was, all my files in the Document folder on my PC disappeared too. It seems that OneDrive has removed all my files from the PC to the OneDrive folder and never allows me to bring them back to my PC. I hope you could do a video or may be explain here on how to solve this problem.
Pretty sure its gone. I set up OneDrive as an alternative to some back ups I was making before a drive format, and now there's a file structure with random files missing. Like it never fully synced the files to begin with and just lied and told me it did, or synced to another computer where the files didn't exist. It's a horrible product.
You can press right on click files and click 'Always keep on this device'. Therefore it's actually stored. Now I still don't know how I can keep OneDrive and have it not touch certain files, because some games store stuff in the Documents folder and I don't want to move it as the game is actually refering to these files. And there's no need to have this on my OneDrive folder online. PLEASE ONEDRIVE JUST WORK LIKE DROPBOX. 1) Get the hell out of documents. 2) Don't delete stuff unless I ask bro. 3). Don't sync stuff I don't want you to sync. We can only dream.
thank you so much! i wanted to keep my old art on my computer for memories sake but not keep them forever in the cloud. i got really frustrated with it but you made everything really clear. thank you!!
THANK YOU! I have been using Windows since Windows '93. I have been out of the look since around the launch of Windows 10, and I didn't pay much attention to OneDrive at the time. About five months ago I got my current machine and files have been syncing to OneDrive on their own. I have been trying to free up space on my OneDrive but kept deleting them from being accessed on my laptop afterward. I didn't realize Microsoft made a distinction between the 'pictures' and 'documents' folders under 'This PC' and the user's folders listed under C:/
A follow up video on what to do after removing OneDrive would be great. Like; How to change the file paths for your programs when saving Pictures, Documents etc. For example in Office programs such as word, It will continue to save to the one drive folder still on your PC. Whereas most users would like to have everything saved and routed to the default locations on the PC. One Drive is a nightmare and is a disgusting irritating bug rooted deep into windows and I hate it. I hate that windows is like this. I never asked or gave explicate permission to OneDrive to re route my destination paths for everything. At this point after removing one drive and uninstalling it on my PC, app don't work cause it can't find the paths it used to find. Learning how to create a new path is a real pain. Thanks for you video.
I decided foolishly to use this onedrive crap and it automatically synced my whole computer and fucked up everything. WHY? I will not be using this shit after I fix my shit.
Thank you! I used Onedrive to move items from old pc to new, but it filled up straight away with everything and took over my desktop, lol. Perfect solution!
me as well - I hate work on this platform it is so unintuitive the first thing that happened is that it backed up my folder on my C drive and clogged my machine
I bought a new computer and was moving files and folders over from an external hard drive. I kept getting annoying pop-ups telling me I'm filling up One Drive, until the final one that said it's 101% full and I can no longer sync or save data. That freaked me out but now I see it's nothing to do with my latop, just the OneDrive. I never asked to use One Drive, heck I didn't even know what it was. I found I could stop using it but when I clicked on it, it gave me a warning that made me wonder if what's stored there will be deleted. It would be nice if they actually asked us first if we wanted it and what we actually want to put in the cloud, Thank you for your video. I've been searching for days trying to find out what's what and your video explains the whole process very well. I still have a qburning uestion though. Mine says I have 239 sync issues. After watching your video, I clicked to see what was in it and there are so many folders affected with maybe one file each with a X on them. From my point of view, it would be a monumental task to get those files back one by one. Unless you have a better option, although I dread doing it, I can stop the association like you direced, (I do not want anything to do with OneDrive) and then move all 700 gigs of data over to the new laptop again. This, along with many admin issues and my computer forcing me to sign up with MS before I could even download the Chrome browser had me ready to pack it up and return it. I've never had such a hard time settng up a new computer and I've been using them since 1998. I have been Googling for everything which is non-existant in the computer manual and that really has me upset that I've already wasted a week of my time. I'd appreciate any adivce you have to offer.
Wow ! That was the best how-to video I've seen on the Internet. So well presented. Thank you sir. I used to lookup solutions on the ask Leo website from the time it started. Glad you are on you tube now !!
Thank You so much for this! I just got Windows 11 and onedrive immediately filled up and put red X's on my PC on every video photo and document I have, and constantly popping up "Buy the upgrade! Buy the upgrade!" so annoying. The only thing I want it for is sometimes it's easier to share a pic with someone through there
Thank You. Nice instruction on the "OneDrive" storage & assicated techniques involved. QUESTION:I would like to move the" OneDrive" scenario to a local NAS drive and mimic iCloud locally -EASILY.
I don't trust One Drive after Microsoft wouldn't accept my Microsoft account password when setting up my new laptop forcing me to use a disused email address. All my cloud stuff goes in Dropbox and Google Drive.
My problem with one drive is that it likes to backup a crazy bunch of my games from steam, things that, in the long run don't even matter (I can just reload from steam and store the saves on my flashdrive) and just take up space so I can constantly have it blaring in my face that it's run out of space. I just wish it allowed more control logistically over what I wanted to store in OneDrive to keep safe without constantly having to tend to it. Who knows maybe it's me but I really only want to use it for a select few things.
Thank you for your service, everything I saw just kept switching to to pictures under "This PC", where in my case, the pictures originated from. With this I just tried the actual Local Disk user and it worked.
I have two windows set up side by side so I can clearly see the two destination paths. One says "this PC>Documents" and the other says "OneDrive>Documents" but when i go to move the specific folder (Electronic Arts) from the one drive to the PC, it says "the destination folder is the same as the source folder" so I am confused and don't know what to do.
To fix this, I finally created a new documents-like folder **outside of the existing Documents structure** and moved my files there. OneDrive had taken over my Documents folder, backed up everything it could and then told me my cloud space was full (yes, I'm a packrat) and I could only continue if I purchased more space.
Unless you see a slash and not the > symbol, then you're looking at an abbreviated filepath. What you should do to double check the full filepath is to click on "Local Disk (C:)" or whatever drive you're in, select the "Users" folder, select the User logged into the computer and then check both the Documents folder and OneDrive folder which both inhabit that particular user's folder. Within the OneDrive folder is also a "Documents" folder but it is NOT the same location as the Documents folder that was located up one generation in the specific user's folder. Copy the "Documents" folder located in the OneDrive folder, navigate up one tier into the user's folder and paste into THAT folder. On that tier, since there is a Documents folder, once you paste the copied folder into the user's folder, it will overwrite that stand-alone Documents folder and your stuff will now exist in a location outside of the OneDrive folder.
Great video. Thanks for this. I really really dislike OneDrive. It fills up very quickly and then can't get any emails. I also did loose all my files because I didn't know they were all on OneDrive and when I deleted it from there (when I thought it was the cloud drive) it deleted from my computer!!!
You have to conclude that Microsoft named two folders Documents to be intentionally confusing. Scummy business practices. The reason I switched to Linux years ago.
You have helped me out several times, thank you. This may seem like a simple question that anyone with the basic computer knowledge would know.... I have Windows 10. One this video you have OneDrive folder open then open a new one. Now, here is my simple question: How did you open the new window from the folder? I tried right click, didn't work. The option for new window is not there. I tried just clicking on it, nope. How about those little icons in the top left...., nope. Well, I'll go back through your video a few times to see, nope. Leo, dummy it down for me. This OneDrive it driving me nuts!
One drive is a cancer on my machine. I've lost so much data over bad syncing. I unlinked my account, it keeps relinking. I changed the desktop to the the default - now I have two desktops, the onedrive one is the one that functions as an actual desktop that seemingly randomly overwrites my files with older versions from time to time.
4:27 NOTHING is showing in my one drive folder but when I go to open documents it shows they are saving to one drive. How the hell? AND if I try to open one drive it says I have to "set it up.". So how does it save there if it's not set up AND i do not have a one drive icon and so what the hell?
I don't understand: You have two 'Document' folders - one is INSIDE the OneDrive folder, and the other one is the *normal* "Document" folder - that you claim has nothing to do with OneDrive. But when you (in Windows Explorer) click on the path to this *normal* folder, it is also in a subfolder of OneDrive! (In this path, it says OneDrive just below the username.) Please explain.
Microsoft obviously made this difficult to bleed more money from the consumer. Once you hit 5 gigs your notified of no more cloud space so cough up more $$ to continue it's use. You seriously can't just delete the files in one drive without it deleting off of your drive by a simple right click. Better yet be given the option also before download or transfer. Pausing it doesn't help either because it automatically downloads after the pause duration. FRUSTRATING!!
I need to free space. I CUT and PASTE a couple big folders from my explorer, to a diffeent fodler entirely. but onedirve is redownloading them aghain and reeing no space! WHat is going wrong? NOw I have 850 GB in my windows onedrive flder but it is reporting online drive as having almost 1 TB. I want to clean up and delete eveything from online onedrive cloud that is not sitting inside myt local onedrive folder. Any way? My onedirve windows folder has all the file I want, and onine cloud onedribe for some reason has alot more.
Thanks for the well thought out video and description! I'm still having trouble knowing whether or not deleting photos from OneDrive is also going to delete it from various locations on my phone and or computer. If I delete OneDrive from my phone does that secure the photos that are inside of my Samsung Galaxy gallery ? I currently have sync turned off in the gallery but I don't know if that protects the images that are within. I tried following the directions and right clicking on the OneDrive icon but it said that it could not connect to the server and that there was a problem.
dang that’s tragic. was it something you did by accident or it did it by itself and there was nothing you could do? i’m having this same problem. it only gave me 5.0 GB cloud storage and i don’t wanna use onedrive anymore because i do music and i need way more space than that lmao. any tips? i’m scared that if i unlink my pc from onedrive that all my music will be gone.
@@camrenjaurbello1323 computer started downloading directories and settings and duplicating everything to where it doesn't work any longer when you make small changes to the app.... Only way to fix it I've found is doing a windows reset and install local only no cloud with only local storage without any file downloads to external sites.
I have an SSD that is full and a 1T HDD that is 90% empty. When I try to move the files e.g. "pictures" I get a message that I cannot do that because "there is a folder in the same location that can't be redirected." I'm sure this has something to do with OneDrive. If you know anything about this your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
My PC is ruined I already deleted ...every time I turn my computer on one drive and cloud starts downloading my directories and settings and duplicating everything to where it doesn't work any longer .... I'm starting new with only local storage rn after this mishap to fix that
My One drive storage is almost full ? How can i delete file from the One drive folder to create more space ? I don't want to upgrade , i see we have to pay to increase the storage . I am on a strict budjet. What is the best thing i could do ?
Delete the file from the OneDrive folder on your PC, OR Go online to onedrive.com and delete the file there. Just make sure you have saved copies of it elsewhere in case it's still a file you want to keep.
Thanks for this video so simple and clear. I have now removed a bulk of the data from the one drive freeing up space. If I decide to now unlink one drive with files still existing in it - will it remove those files permanently?
@Ask Leo. Leo, my computer says my locally saved files/ documents are actually saved on one drive instead of my PC. Would copying those files into an external SSD hard drive prevent those files from being deleted on my computer if I deleted them from one drive online? Currently if I were to un sync one drive I am not able to access my locally saved computer files since they were saved on my one drive. However I was able to copy the same files from my external hard drive an access them that way. Is there a way to save my local files in to my pc and not have on one drive without copying a new file in to my external SSD This came about because my university had our one drive accounts reduced from 1tb to 20gb which means I am over now, so I am trying to reduce my storage by actually removing my supposedly local files from being saved synced into one drive which is about 20.4gb The problem seems to be that the default location of my saved files/ documents is one drive so I ended up having my document file linked to one drive so I had two, one in my computer and one in my one drive. 😢
NVM - I fixed it by backing up my folder/ documents into my external ssd and my other one drive account and then reverted the main documents folder location from one drive to my c drive which was the main problem. And then movies my stuff back into the documents folder.
I unlinked my pc from onedrive, I moved the files like in your video but when i go to save a document for example. it still continues to save to onedrive instead of local pc which is what I want.
Tthanks so much Leo. This was very good. I wanted to Unlink to both my old and new PC. QUESTION. Seems to have worked for the old, but my new laptop with Windows 11..... One Drive just seems to turn itself back on all the time! How can I get rid of it completley please? Thanks
Ahh Sorry! I Found it! How to save documents on local computer instead of One drive or sharepoint. Open a new document. Head up to the File tab and choose Options on the bottom left corner. Choose Save from the pop-up window. Uncheck the box that says AutoSave OneDrive and SharePoint Online files by default on Word.
Great video! Hoping you can answer this scenario which is a combination of the two scenarios in your video. I have lots of folders in my OneDrive that are also on my computer. They sync. Let’s say I have 50 folders. Now I just want to remove 10 of those folders from OneDrive, but leave them on my PC. I read about selecting ‘Always keep on this device’, but that’s not doing what I want. I need to be able to delete a folder on OneDrive and NOT have it also delete that same folder on my PC. Thanks so much!
Would it have been too much to simply add a button that says "Unsync"? How the hell did they mess something like this up? How couldn't they think that people would want to remove things from OneDrive only? It's such a simple yet fundamentally major design flaw that I can't wrap my head around it.
I think they just want you to fill up One Drive quickly so you will buy extra space. I think this is a really invasive and over-controlling app! I'm glad to have found this video!
Malicious intent.
Exactly!!
@@gloriapinskerportraits4801 Exactly, I just upgraded to Windows 11 and I can no longer move my files to an external drive, so I am forced to either cave in and buy more space or spend hours looking at videos and information as to how to now move my files. It's actually making me think about learning how to use Linux and getting rid of Windows completely. Not only was the upgrade a downgrade to many applications, it somehow exposed my credit card information to Bangledeshi scammers and I'm not exactly sure how, but immediately after I upgraded, I had a pending charge to my account that said it was from Microsoft, and concurrently an email from a Bangleshi scam company that said thank your for updating your Norton antivirus, we will be charging your credit card $360. I'm overseas and it is the only credit card that I have and I had to cancel it. Thanks Microsoft. Plus, I think Bill Gates is a criminal who should be on death row.
yeah it synced my entire hard drive and when i uninstalled one drive all my stuff was gone
Data should NEVER have left my PC and been placed on some public storage somewhere on the net, A). less my knowing and B). less my permission in the first place.
This modern trend of intrusion and liberty taking is infuriating.
INFURIATING!!!!!
and they call that place the "Cloud" because calling it Microsoft's Computer just wouldn't be Orwellian enough... heh...
If you (know how to) use OneDrive you _do_ know, and placing your files in the OneDrive folder implies your permission. If you don't know how OneDrive works you won't place your files in the OneDrive folder.
Solved.
@@stevenvanhulle7242 Microsoft owns you and your files anyway.
@@flipflopski2951 Paranoid much?
Hey man… THANK YOU. The fix was a little simpler than I thought. I have tried in the past to do this, and had trouble. I did it again today, and no trouble. I hate OneDrive !! I like to organize my files in my PC exactly how I want them. On the hard drive. I only want CERTAIN things to be shared. And OneDrive just wants to gobble up everything then tell me “running out of space , buy more “. Nah… I’m not BUYING MORE ANYTHING. Anyway, thank you!
I just want to say that you are AWESOME! I have asked so many people how to do this and no one could offer successful advise or instruction. Thank you for being so easy to understand and easy to follow. YOU ROCK!!!
i agree
this has been giving me a ton of trouble, thank you so much for the solution!! it feels really shady that there isn't a more intuitive option, everything in onedrive feels clunky and convoluted. i wasn't even aware until recently that the things i was saving weren't saved directly to my pc, and the only thing that made it clear were the storage errors and the constant insistence that the only way to get more space was to buy more onedrive storage (which i by no means have a real need for, i have more than enough space on my pc). again, thank you!
0:35 Opening One Drive
1:02 Saving on PC only
2:00 Remove files from One Drive Recycle Bin
4:01 No longer want to use One Drive
Thank you for this! Having an absolute nightmare with OneDrive right now. Was clearing space in it and my files were disappearing from my desktop too!
Same I straight up panicked today
Same here 🥵🥵
Same here. All gone😭
@@colbyhowell9265 Learning how to use Linux is easier that trying to make Windows usable.
Leo - Thanks so very much for explaining this in a clear and concise manner. I didn't realize items were going to a OneDrive storage - - UNTIL I began to get the message that my OneDrive was FULL! Then I noticed that I was getting ERROR messages on my files. I also noticed there were two Docs folder, but still didn't make a connection. WOW! How confusing! Again, many thanks!
Dude you saved my pc, thank you!
Abit over the top lol
You have a gift for explaining things clearly. You saved my computer from this one drive cancer.
Thank you ! You saved my Documents ! One drive blocked my email and my computer because I exceeded the size, but I never wanted to store my docs on one drive! I sent myself a test email, I received it in return that the file is full and impossible to receive it! Mind-blowing! Thank you Greetings from France !
OneDrive is over complicated. It's a backup service. It should just ask for folders one wants backed up and do it's job. Deleting files from the folder shouldn't remove them from OneDrive and vice versa. Microsoft has made this product act like an external hard drive.
This helps alot. This garbage program had enabled itself without my permision and was copying my pc's files to it for so damn long so glad to have it gone thanks!
One Drive Duplicates everything in your Documents of the "C" Drive and then takes up Harddrive space decreasing your Storage on your Computer.
Do you know if I save my documents to my D:/ drive instead of to my C:/ drive if they will then not be accessible to OneDrive? I think OneDrive is an invasion of privacy and it should ask before saving to the cloud.
@@sydneym.778 Typically, if you're saving anything to the D:/ Drive, you're getting ready to save it to a CD or DVD, as that's the default drive letter for a CD / DVD player.
The point is there is a limited amount of storage you can use on OneDrive before having to PAY for more. Watse of money. I have 200 GB left on my storage. I do not need One Drive. And if I see one more 'Storage is Full' notification I'm getting a new computer out of spite
Thank you so much -- so helpful! I find One Drive very invasive. I was appalled to find out that if you delete something from it, it disappears from your computer and all other devices! I prefer to pick and choose what gets saved to OneDrive.
It happened to me. Deleted some files n pictures, videos from onedrive, and horrified to find all of them been auto deleted frm my pc & hp. 😭😭😭
This is criminal by MS.
and microsoft doesn't tell you that you're deleting from more than one location...
This has bothered me for years and my files were always all over the place thanks to one drive. I finally consolidated everything and can find the files I need. Thank you
I love the way you are explaining. Amazingly calm and comprehensible. Thank you very much.
You are the best! I can't believe how simple OneDrive really is! I've been struggling with trying to understand how it works for years and in one simple video, you've made all the pieces of information I've been able to decipher on my own make sense! I will definitely be referring back to this video whenever I need a refresher. Thank you so much for clearing up the jumble that was in my head! 😃
I've spent two weeks trying to word the problem correctly to have this question answered. Found your video and was delighted to have my problem fixed. Thank you for the warning us about unlinking your PC from OneDrive and backing up your files. I decided not to do that. However, I have moved my files to my computer and emptied the recycle bin on OneDrive. Just over-joyed. Thanks again. 💕 ~*Shana
Thank you this OneDrive storage was stressing me out 👍🏽
Well done. You have no idea what a pleasure it is to listen to someone who speaks English without a horrible accent in your case no accent at all, and without a lot of background noise and without repeating a lot of useless information I didn’t need to hear. I realize I just got through with a tremendous horrible run-on sentence, but I just wanted to say thank you for your help in such a clear concise way. Thank you
OMG, Its really helpful. my 7 GB file were uploading by mistake and I wanted to stop it in between. I searched many videos on youtube but it was not helpful then I got your video and this time also I was hopeless but surprisingly your video helped me. Thank you 1 Million times.
Why would anyone think that deleting from online BACKUPS would mean I want to delete the main files. Backups are for backups, not for the main files.
Hi Leo, I have another problem with OneDrive. Today, I just mistakenly clicked YES to back up my Documents folder in my PC to my OneDrive, which I thought the system would allow me to choose which file, but it happened to be all the files in my Documents folder. The problem is, once I did that, there is no turning back, which I tried many times to unsync OneDrive, unlink it as well as to stop back up the folder. What happened was, all my files in the Document folder on my PC disappeared too. It seems that OneDrive has removed all my files from the PC to the OneDrive folder and never allows me to bring them back to my PC. I hope you could do a video or may be explain here on how to solve this problem.
I literally have THE SAME ISSUE !!!
Pretty sure its gone. I set up OneDrive as an alternative to some back ups I was making before a drive format, and now there's a file structure with random files missing. Like it never fully synced the files to begin with and just lied and told me it did, or synced to another computer where the files didn't exist. It's a horrible product.
7 months ago and he didnt get a reply! What am I going to do?
same problem right now...
You can press right on click files and click 'Always keep on this device'. Therefore it's actually stored.
Now I still don't know how I can keep OneDrive and have it not touch certain files, because some games store stuff in the Documents folder and I don't want to move it as the game is actually refering to these files. And there's no need to have this on my OneDrive folder online. PLEASE ONEDRIVE JUST WORK LIKE DROPBOX. 1) Get the hell out of documents. 2) Don't delete stuff unless I ask bro. 3). Don't sync stuff I don't want you to sync.
We can only dream.
HOW DO I MOVE DESKTOP FOLDER IF IT SYNCED IT TO ONE DRIVE PLEASE HELP
Try Linux.
30 seconds into the video he gives the answer to this question.
This was perfect. Accidentally installed 22gb of songs onto one drive and it filled the storage and screwed everything up. This helped so much Thanks
:👍
Thank you so much! I was trying to get a folder with a bunch of videos out of onedrive. I couldn't figure it out until now!
It's outrageous that private files are automatically updated to Microsoft's cloud without your permission.
thank you so much! i wanted to keep my old art on my computer for memories sake but not keep them forever in the cloud. i got really frustrated with it but you made everything really clear. thank you!!
Thanks for the clear, methodical and simple explanation. Worked flawlessly.
I am so glad I found this video, and you, Leo! I am going to bookmark your site and refer to it often.
Don't you just wish for the 'good old days', when the Operating System for your PC, came with a Users Manual, that listed all the various commands ?
THANK YOU! I have been using Windows since Windows '93. I have been out of the look since around the launch of Windows 10, and I didn't pay much attention to OneDrive at the time. About five months ago I got my current machine and files have been syncing to OneDrive on their own. I have been trying to free up space on my OneDrive but kept deleting them from being accessed on my laptop afterward. I didn't realize Microsoft made a distinction between the 'pictures' and 'documents' folders under 'This PC' and the user's folders listed under C:/
A follow up video on what to do after removing OneDrive would be great.
Like;
How to change the file paths for your programs when saving Pictures, Documents etc.
For example in Office programs such as word, It will continue to save to the one drive folder still on your PC.
Whereas most users would like to have everything saved and routed to the default locations on the PC.
One Drive is a nightmare and is a disgusting irritating bug rooted deep into windows and I hate it.
I hate that windows is like this.
I never asked or gave explicate permission to OneDrive to re route my destination paths for everything.
At this point after removing one drive and uninstalling it on my PC, app don't work cause it can't find the paths it used to find.
Learning how to create a new path is a real pain.
Thanks for you video.
Agreed, I hate onedrive with a passion and wish Microsoft never created it!
You explain everything perfectly. Keep up the good work :)
Thanks for the video. Like an idiot, I did not realize the files were being uploaded.
Very informative. Just the information I was looking for. Thank you very much.
my brother was on my laptop and put my sims on one drive as u could imagine- that was a lot of storage ty!!
I almost lost all my savefiles in the sims bc of onedrive :) my life flashed in front of my eyes
I decided foolishly to use this onedrive crap and it automatically synced my whole computer and fucked up everything.
WHY?
I will not be using this shit after I fix my shit.
Thank you! I used Onedrive to move items from old pc to new, but it filled up straight away with everything and took over my desktop, lol. Perfect solution!
This video answered my original question and also provided how to unlink the onedrive! Thank you!
Thank you. This is very helpful information, even two years after it was posted.
great explanation! One drive drives me crazy ;)
me as well - I hate work on this platform
it is so unintuitive
the first thing that happened is that it backed up my folder on my C drive and clogged my machine
The kicker is... You'll never really know if you really removed your files from One Drive.
Another One Drive amazing video Leo. Thank you !!!!
THANK THE LORD! OMG THANK YOU! HERE IS A COOKIE SIR! 🍪 YOU DESERVE IT!
I bought a new computer and was moving files and folders over from an external hard drive. I kept getting annoying pop-ups telling me I'm filling up One Drive, until the final one that said it's 101% full and I can no longer sync or save data. That freaked me out but now I see it's nothing to do with my latop, just the OneDrive.
I never asked to use One Drive, heck I didn't even know what it was. I found I could stop using it but when I clicked on it, it gave me a warning that made me wonder if what's stored there will be deleted. It would be nice if they actually asked us first if we wanted it and what we actually want to put in the cloud,
Thank you for your video. I've been searching for days trying to find out what's what and your video explains the whole process very well. I still have a qburning uestion though.
Mine says I have 239 sync issues. After watching your video, I clicked to see what was in it and there are so many folders affected with maybe one file each with a X on them. From my point of view, it would be a monumental task to get those files back one by one. Unless you have a better option, although I dread doing it, I can stop the association like you direced, (I do not want anything to do with OneDrive) and then move all 700 gigs of data over to the new laptop again. This, along with many admin issues and my computer forcing me to sign up with MS before I could even download the Chrome browser had me ready to pack it up and return it. I've never had such a hard time settng up a new computer and I've been using them since 1998. I have been Googling for everything which is non-existant in the computer manual and that really has me upset that I've already wasted a week of my time.
I'd appreciate any adivce you have to offer.
This is why you NEVER use OneDrive or any other "service" scam like it.
Wow ! That was the best how-to video I've seen on the Internet. So well presented. Thank you sir. I used to lookup solutions on the ask Leo website from the time it started. Glad you are on you tube now !!
Thank You so much for this! I just got Windows 11 and onedrive immediately filled up and put red X's on my PC on every video photo and document I have, and constantly popping up "Buy the upgrade! Buy the upgrade!" so annoying. The only thing I want it for is sometimes it's easier to share a pic with someone through there
Thank You. Nice instruction on the "OneDrive" storage & assicated techniques involved.
QUESTION:I would like to move the" OneDrive" scenario to a local NAS drive and mimic iCloud locally -EASILY.
Really appreciate this. As I am trying to get file structure organized.
Really great and helpful, easy to understand tutorial! Thank you.
I don't trust One Drive after Microsoft wouldn't accept my Microsoft account password when setting up my new laptop forcing me to use a disused email address. All my cloud stuff goes in Dropbox and Google Drive.
My problem with one drive is that it likes to backup a crazy bunch of my games from steam, things that, in the long run don't even matter (I can just reload from steam and store the saves on my flashdrive) and just take up space so I can constantly have it blaring in my face that it's run out of space. I just wish it allowed more control logistically over what I wanted to store in OneDrive to keep safe without constantly having to tend to it. Who knows maybe it's me but I really only want to use it for a select few things.
Leo always talks sense.
Great way of explaining . not only helpful, super helpful. thanks
Thank you for your service, everything I saw just kept switching to to pictures under "This PC", where in my case, the pictures originated from. With this I just tried the actual Local Disk user and it worked.
Double thumbs up!!! VERY helpful video 😀
Thank you so much for these videos! I am a One Drive newbie and this is super helpful!
What a great explanation!! Thanks, Leo!!
Thank you very much. I did not understand the relationship between onedrive and my computer, so I deleted files off onedrive. THANK GOD for BACKUPS !
"THANK GOD for BACKUPS !" SO TRUE! 👍
I have two windows set up side by side so I can clearly see the two destination paths. One says "this PC>Documents" and the other says "OneDrive>Documents" but when i go to move the specific folder (Electronic Arts) from the one drive to the PC, it says "the destination folder is the same as the source folder" so I am confused and don't know what to do.
To fix this, I finally created a new documents-like folder **outside of the existing Documents structure** and moved my files there. OneDrive had taken over my Documents folder, backed up everything it could and then told me my cloud space was full (yes, I'm a packrat) and I could only continue if I purchased more space.
Unless you see a slash and not the > symbol, then you're looking at an abbreviated filepath. What you should do to double check the full filepath is to click on "Local Disk (C:)" or whatever drive you're in, select the "Users" folder, select the User logged into the computer and then check both the Documents folder and OneDrive folder which both inhabit that particular user's folder. Within the OneDrive folder is also a "Documents" folder but it is NOT the same location as the Documents folder that was located up one generation in the specific user's folder.
Copy the "Documents" folder located in the OneDrive folder, navigate up one tier into the user's folder and paste into THAT folder. On that tier, since there is a Documents folder, once you paste the copied folder into the user's folder, it will overwrite that stand-alone Documents folder and your stuff will now exist in a location outside of the OneDrive folder.
the only person that made this work, thanks.
Great video. Thanks for this. I really really dislike OneDrive. It fills up very quickly and then can't get any emails. I also did loose all my files because I didn't know they were all on OneDrive and when I deleted it from there (when I thought it was the cloud drive) it deleted from my computer!!!
You have to conclude that Microsoft named two folders Documents to be intentionally confusing. Scummy business practices. The reason I switched to Linux years ago.
Thank you so much for making this video. It was easy to follow and easy for me to remove stuff from onedrive and place it only on my laptop.
Thanks for the information Leo. Have a wonderful holiday season.
You have helped me out several times, thank you. This may seem like a simple question that anyone with the basic computer knowledge would know.... I have Windows 10. One this video you have OneDrive folder open then open a new one. Now, here is my simple question: How did you open the new window from the folder? I tried right click, didn't work. The option for new window is not there. I tried just clicking on it, nope. How about those little icons in the top left...., nope. Well, I'll go back through your video a few times to see, nope. Leo, dummy it down for me. This OneDrive it driving me nuts!
CTRL+N for new window perhaps?
@@askleonotenboom, thank you so much, it worked!! I knew it had to be simple. I appreciate the quick the response.
Thanks grandpa, This is helpful. This is the thing I'm looking for, because I'm having trouble with file saving.
You're welcome, little child.
@@askleonotenboom ✔
One drive is a cancer on my machine. I've lost so much data over bad syncing. I unlinked my account, it keeps relinking. I changed the desktop to the the default - now I have two desktops, the onedrive one is the one that functions as an actual desktop that seemingly randomly overwrites my files with older versions from time to time.
Thanks so much for this and keeping it short and to the point. It was driving me round the bend till I came across your video.
4:27 NOTHING is showing in my one drive folder but when I go to open documents it shows they are saving to one drive. How the hell?
AND if I try to open one drive it says I have to "set it up.". So how does it save there if it's not set up
AND i do not have a one drive icon and so what the hell?
I don't understand: You have two 'Document' folders - one is INSIDE the OneDrive folder, and the other one is the *normal* "Document" folder - that you claim has nothing to do with OneDrive. But when you (in Windows Explorer) click on the path to this *normal* folder, it is also in a subfolder of OneDrive! (In this path, it says OneDrive just below the username.)
Please explain.
Oh my god. I had a intense problem with onedrive for 6 months! You fixed it
Microsoft obviously made this difficult to bleed more money from the consumer.
Once you hit 5 gigs your notified of no more cloud space so cough up more $$ to continue it's use. You seriously can't just delete the files in one drive without it deleting off of your drive by a simple right click. Better yet be given the option also before download or transfer.
Pausing it doesn't help either because it automatically downloads after the pause duration. FRUSTRATING!!
The video covers a fine solution that costs nothing: move your files out of onedrive. Problem solved.
I had to unlink them. That was my only way. I too don't like how they do that.
When you need a real answer you need to find a gray beard. You are awesome.
Getting grayer every day.
This is the best of the best one drive video ever.
Thank you very much. You explained it in the best way possible.
Perfect just what I needed to know!
I need to free space. I CUT and PASTE a couple big folders from my explorer, to a diffeent fodler entirely. but onedirve is redownloading them aghain and reeing no space! WHat is going wrong? NOw I have 850 GB in my windows onedrive flder but it is reporting online drive as having almost 1 TB. I want to clean up and delete eveything from online onedrive cloud that is not sitting inside myt local onedrive folder. Any way? My onedirve windows folder has all the file I want, and onine cloud onedribe for some reason has alot more.
Thanks for the well thought out video and description! I'm still having trouble knowing whether or not deleting photos from OneDrive is also going to delete it from various locations on my phone and or computer. If I delete OneDrive from my phone does that secure the photos that are inside of my Samsung Galaxy gallery ? I currently have sync turned off in the gallery but I don't know if that protects the images that are within. I tried following the directions and right clicking on the OneDrive icon but it said that it could not connect to the server and that there was a problem.
I don't wanna use OneDrive anymore but some files are in there that I want to move out but It wont let me.
I figured out how to do it but deleted stuff that I needed lmao-
dang that’s tragic. was it something you did by accident or it did it by itself and there was nothing you could do? i’m having this same problem. it only gave me 5.0 GB cloud storage and i don’t wanna use onedrive anymore because i do music and i need way more space than that lmao. any tips? i’m scared that if i unlink my pc from onedrive that all my music will be gone.
@@camrenjaurbello1323 computer started downloading directories and settings and duplicating everything to where it doesn't work any longer when you make small changes to the app.... Only way to fix it I've found is doing a windows reset and install local only no cloud with only local storage without any file downloads to external sites.
hello! Thank you Leo ..Now I have free my one drive. Thank you so much!
I have an SSD that is full and a 1T HDD that is 90% empty. When I try to move the files e.g. "pictures" I get a message that I cannot do that because "there is a folder in the same location that can't be redirected." I'm sure this has something to do with OneDrive. If you know anything about this your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Onedrive is a disaster - don't use it
My PC is ruined I already deleted ...every time I turn my computer on one drive and cloud starts downloading my directories and settings and duplicating everything to where it doesn't work any longer .... I'm starting new with only local storage rn after this mishap to fix that
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, YOU ARE A LEGEND
Fucking wish I never downloaded one drive. Thank you, Sir.
Great info, much appreciated !
Thanks Sir! Very helpful!
My One drive storage is almost full ? How can i delete file from the One drive folder to create more space ? I don't want to upgrade , i see we have to pay to increase the storage . I am on a strict budjet. What is the best thing i could do ?
Delete the file from the OneDrive folder on your PC, OR Go online to onedrive.com and delete the file there. Just make sure you have saved copies of it elsewhere in case it's still a file you want to keep.
Thanks for this video so simple and clear.
I have now removed a bulk of the data from the one drive freeing up space.
If I decide to now unlink one drive with files still existing in it - will it remove those files permanently?
It depends on what you mean by "unlink".
I don’t even pay for one drive but it randomly had my email signed in and we’re saving files is this normal?
There's a free tier with all Microsoft accounts, so yes, normal.
@Ask Leo.
Leo, my computer says my locally saved files/ documents are actually saved on one drive instead of my PC. Would copying those files into an external SSD hard drive prevent those files from being deleted on my computer if I deleted them from one drive online?
Currently if I were to un sync one drive I am not able to access my locally saved computer files since they were saved on my one drive. However I was able to copy the same files from my external hard drive an access them that way.
Is there a way to save my local files in to my pc and not have on one drive without copying a new file in to my external SSD
This came about because my university had our one drive accounts reduced from 1tb to 20gb which means I am over now, so I am trying to reduce my storage by actually removing my supposedly local files from being saved synced into one drive which is about 20.4gb
The problem seems to be that the default location of my saved files/ documents is one drive so I ended up having my document file linked to one drive so I had two, one in my computer and one in my one drive. 😢
NVM - I fixed it by backing up my folder/ documents into my external ssd and my other one drive account and then reverted the main documents folder location from one drive to my c drive which was the main problem. And then movies my stuff back into the documents folder.
Thank you Leo for your clear and concise instructions! Very helpful indeed!
so is there an actual Library System in the cloud that we can access that will not insist on syncing up to a local device?
Great help, THX Leo !
I unlinked my pc from onedrive, I moved the files like in your video but when i go to save a document for example. it still continues to save to onedrive instead of local pc which is what I want.
This depends on the program you're using. You'll need to check it's settings and change the default save location.
Tthanks so much Leo. This was very good. I wanted to Unlink to both my old and new PC. QUESTION. Seems to have worked for the old, but my new laptop with Windows 11..... One Drive just seems to turn itself back on all the time! How can I get rid of it completley please? Thanks
Ahh Sorry! I Found it! How to save documents on local computer instead of One drive or sharepoint.
Open a new document.
Head up to the File tab and choose Options on the bottom left corner.
Choose Save from the pop-up window.
Uncheck the box that says AutoSave OneDrive and SharePoint Online files by default on Word.
Great video!
Hoping you can answer this scenario which is a combination of the two scenarios in your video.
I have lots of folders in my OneDrive that are also on my computer. They sync. Let’s say I have 50 folders. Now I just want to remove 10 of those folders from OneDrive, but leave them on my PC. I read about selecting ‘Always keep on this device’, but that’s not doing what I want. I need to be able to delete a folder on OneDrive and NOT have it also delete that same folder on my PC.
Thanks so much!
As the video outlines, you need to MOVE the files on your computer our from within the OneDrive folder.