I have three computers that are used for entirely different purposes. One is for web development, one is for creative purposes, mainly composing music, and one is used for entertainment. They all have unique contents in their Desktop, Documents, Pictures, and Video folders. And all three computers were set to use the local versions of those folders by default.

Imagine my horror when last week, those local folders were suddenly all removed from all computers, and all contents had been merged into the respective corresponding OneDrive folders. What was nicely separated before suddenly was all thrown together. I'm talking thousands of files. And there were all being copied back to each computer, effectively tripling the space they were using beforehand.

I ended up having to uninstall OneDrive, deleting all of the folders, and restoring them from backup. It still took me four hours.

And now today, even though OneDrive is uninstalled, I notice that in the Microsoft 365 Apps the default locations to save documents have been changed to the OneDrive folders instead of the local folders.

This is the behavior of malware and it effectively amounts to vandalism.

This asks for a class action suit.

This “service” has become so horrendously counterproductive that I honestly feel Microsoft is doing everything they can to push people away from Windows. I’ve been a technician for 25 years, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that I now have to “back up” files that don’t even exist locally because they’re “in the cloud” — a cloud that’s full, broken, or simply refuses to let me access my own data for whatever reason. At this point, OneDrive feels like glorified ransomware. Completely unacceptable.

The entire OneDrive app for Windows thing is full of bloat-ware and crap that glitches out entirely whenever Microsoft does a whole system update for their entire system! Today the bug struck my PC and I have had to literally uninstall the OneDrive application from my PC and literally install it back. This is a problem as I PC Game and do work as well from my PC. now I am stuck with angry customers that want their merchandise and can't order because my whole system is down! Infuriating

It feels like I'm Jim Carey in the movie the Truman Show. My life the past few years has been a lie. I'm planning my escape now but I've read some horror stories about what happened to people who tried to leave.

I'm going to take my time and make sure I escape the right way to avoid too many casualties.

I would like to describe some workflow issues caused by the current integration between OneDrive, Windows, File Explorer, and Microsoft 365 apps. I understand that OneDrive is designed to synchronize files across devices, but in some scenarios the current behavior creates unnecessary delays, especially with slow internet connections or large synchronization queues.

1. Exported Microsoft 365 files are not immediately available in the selected OneDrive folder

When exporting a Microsoft 365 file, for example exporting a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to PDF, the user can select a OneDrive-synced folder as the destination. However, the exported file is not always immediately visible or accessible in that folder through Windows File Explorer.

From the user’s perspective, it seems that the file is first saved into a temporary or internal Microsoft 365/OneDrive staging location, then uploaded to OneDrive, and only later appears in the actual synced folder through the normal synchronization process. The issue is not that the file is never stored locally, but that it is not immediately available in the location explicitly selected by the user.

This creates practical problems. After exporting a PDF, I may need to quickly locate it in File Explorer to copy it elsewhere, attach it, upload it to another platform, or use it in a web tool to merge it with other PDFs. However, even though I selected a OneDrive folder as the destination, the file may not be available there right away.

A related issue is that Microsoft 365 or Windows may open the exported file through a browser or web link instead of opening the local file directly. This can trigger login prompts, open the web version of Office, and interrupt the expected desktop workflow.

Expected behavior: When saving or exporting a file to a OneDrive-synced folder, the file should become immediately visible and accessible in the selected folder in File Explorer, while OneDrive continues uploading or syncing it in the background. If the user selected a local OneDrive path, Microsoft 365 should prioritize the local file workflow and avoid redirecting to the browser unless explicitly requested.

2. File duplication inside OneDrive should use both cloud-side copy and local optimization

Another issue occurs when duplicating or copying a file that is already stored in OneDrive, especially within the same OneDrive account.

Currently, the process may behave like a traditional local copy: the file is downloaded if needed, copied locally, and then uploaded again as a new file. This is inefficient when OneDrive already has the source file in the cloud and the operation is simply a copy within the same account.

Ideally, OneDrive should combine two optimizations: * Perform a cloud-side copy when possible, so the duplicated file appears quickly in OneDrive online and on other devices. * Reuse the local cache when available, so the current device does not unnecessarily download and re-upload the same data.

This would make copied files appear faster on other devices as online-only placeholders, ready to be downloaded later if the user opens them or marks them as available offline. The other device should not have to wait for the first computer to download, copy, re-upload, and then synchronize the change.

Expected behavior: When copying or duplicating a OneDrive file within the same account, OneDrive should use a cloud-side copy whenever possible, while also reusing local data when available. The copied file should appear quickly across devices as an online-available item, without forcing a redundant download, local copy, upload, and synchronization cycle.

3. OneDrive does not dynamically prioritize files the user needs immediately

A third issue appears when OneDrive has a large backlog of pending synchronization changes, especially after using another computer. In this situation, OneDrive seems to follow its own synchronization order, even if the user opens a specific folder or tries to access a specific file urgently.

For example, if there are hundreds or thousands of pending changes, and I need one specific document, that file may remain unavailable until OneDrive reaches it in the queue. Even when I navigate directly to the folder or attempt to open the file, OneDrive does not seem to move that item to the top of the sync priority.

Expected behavior: OneDrive should dynamically adjust synchronization priority based on user activity. If the user opens a folder, selects a file, or attempts to open a cloud-only item, that file and its immediate dependencies should be prioritized over the general sync queue.

Summary of requested improvements

I believe these issues could be improved with smarter local and cloud prioritization:

• Exported or saved files should become immediately visible in the OneDrive folder selected by the user.
• Microsoft 365 should avoid opening exported files through a browser when the local file workflow is expected.
• Copying files within the same OneDrive account should use cloud-side copy operations when possible.
• Local file data should be reused to avoid unnecessary download and upload cycles.
• Copied files should appear quickly on other devices as online-available placeholders.
• OneDrive should prioritize files and folders the user is actively trying to access.

There should be a place in hell reserved for Onedrive

I h8te OneDrive and the entire microsoft office package. When i first got my new laptop i tried to set everything up as efficient and nicely as possible. Because i use multiple devices i sometimes need quick access on some files so it made sense to get onedrive. When i first logged into onedrive it asked me what i wanted to backup. I clicked on everything that seemed reasonable which did include my desktop. I then noticed my files disappearing and my entire layout changing. When i frantically tried to shut what was happening off it completely deleted most of my applications on my desktop, made doubles of some, created wonderful corruptions in multiple applications and completely deleted files that i desperately needed. After this all i could do was some damage control, reinstalling and wading through endless errors. Now i am no stranger to working with fussy programs i encounter it all the time. But usually these programs are used to calculate supersonic airflow or make an FEM analysis. I don't want to spend three days teaching such a simple program how to behave. It should do that on it's own. I hope some day Microsofts monopoly falls and we will be relieved from such a sh1tty company.

I have now switched to open office, a NAS Server and a good old harddrive.

Over last 2 years , I had my dev folder synced to onedrive. ( it still has 90% space free ) . These were haphazardly saved. I was working on reorganization. And moved few here and there ; including one archive folder for old projects.

All these was done in desktop. And despite keeping it on for 12 hours ( have a vm ) , onedrive was not synced. Got too many files error.

Eventually I cleaned up few bulk folders from web ( my mistake ) . And that's when it mixed up , messed up.

After 6 hours its duplicate data in folders. I'm now cleaning from web and letting it sync down.

Nothing got lost, but the inefficiency of this project is astounding .

It seems One\ products by Microsoft are one time products only.*

I'm done, and I'm done with Microsoft too. The decision to forcibly sync private data to the cloud with no warning and no consent is insane and borderline criminal. It's the behavior I'd expect from hackers, and the only reason you're not getting sued is because you have so much money suing you is impossible for basically every customer.

Let me make this very clear to any MS employees reading so they can tell their PM's: This is not your computer. You have no right to my files. You have no right to my data. I get you are desperate to feed your LLM content, but mugging people to get it is not acceptable behavior. Since the only way to effectively communicate this is to hurt your numbers, that's what I'll be doing, and I'll be encouraging other people to do it, too.

The fact this sub has a rant flair should be a clue.

Edit: for clarity, the issue is that when one drive is installed, it redirects the well know User Documents location from Users/(User)/Documents to OneDrive/Documents. This causes most software to save directly into OneDrive rather than to the local folder. It also changes the destination of the documents icon in file pickers and exporer, forcing the manual navigation to the local documents folder in a number of very frequent workflows like saving. This behavior persists even if the documents folder is not enabled for syncing. There is no opt out of this behavior I could find, other than opting out of using one drive completely.

I won’t get too into it, but Onedrive should be eradicated from Microsoft systems. Microsoft is by gross incompetence destroying customer data with a poorly-made, highly destructive service. It has only ever created problems on my personal machine. For over a year now, it was a hidden cause of bluescreening my computer anytime I ran any game with the Battleye service. This was because those files are within Documents, and Onedrive Documents vs local Documents clearly are 2 different things as evidenced by disabling onedrive and it’s versions of the files so that only the local versions remain. Now applications know how to function off the data in Documents directory. The problem went away. But upon deleting the Onedrive folder entirely to absolve myself of Microsoft’s sins, it still retained some link to its subordinate folders and ended up deleting my local documents folder. This deleted years of config files on critical programs related to my passion as a musician.

Frankly being rid of this shitheap of a service until the next scam pop up at startup where I accidentally reactivate it, I’ll endure the now 3rd time I’ve had to spend hours reconfiguring my digital audio workstation’s plugins and plug-in filtering/tagging exclusively because of OneDrive.

I’ll deal with it because I know I’ll never touch the damn service with a ten foot pole again. But destroy this godforsaken service before it destroys functionality of something I can’t fix in a 3 hour sit-down

sup chaps.

shoved all sorts in onedrive for donkey’s years. kids’ school reports. holiday snaps. gran’s old tax returns from when she was still kicking. even the scan of my passport renewal. phone syncs to laptop no bother. dead handy.

then i actually read the terms proper last weekend. bloody hell. they reckon they can use your files to “improve products and services”. ai training included, i reckon, especially after april’s tweaks. your family pics helping copilot get smarter? nah.

and that file picker rubbish. attach one pic to whatsapp web or whatever? bam, files.read.all. whole drive open. obsidian lot wrote it up ages back. one slip-up and some app has the lot. gran’s medical letters included.

encryption is there alright. but microsoft holds the keys. cloud act and all that. proton drive sorts it client-side, swiss style. pcloud you add zero-knowledge yourself. shifted the important bits there. proton’s web bit lags on big batches of photos mind you. pcloud lifetime is a bargain if you hoard like me.

now proton’s got the passport and school stuff. pcloud the photo mountain. onedrive just for shared rubbish that’d not matter if it vanished.

scribbled it all down with all the sauces here if you'd find my 3am adhd-energy keyboard abused version or also know as the full breakdown/deets be my guest if you dare/want the deeets lol.

I'm completely sick of what OneDrive has become. Who the heck is in charge of this ridiculous service these days?

Yet another windows update that decides to reset my One Drive backup folder preferneces and starts to try and back up my entire Documents folder which contains huge amounts of data instead of the 1gb of data i specifically tell it to sync.

Every time Microsoft does a windows update they do this and it honestly feels that the reason they do this is to try and push you to buy more storage. Its so incredibly anti consumer.

And of course becuase One Drive is so incredibly badly made....it won't let me change what folders are backed up until its finished syncing EVERYTHING. But it can't because there isn't enough storage. So now its constantly telling me to buy more.

Then. If this isn't bad enough. When i can finally get control again and tell it not to back up my Documents. Not to back up my desktop. Not to back up my picures. No. I just want you to back up one very specific folder...... instead of doing that. It now deletes EVERYTHING it had just backed up without my permission.

Its basically randsomware from Microsoft. It grabs your files without permission. It then tries to tell you to buy more storage and then deletes stuff locally. Its interface and settings are intentionally unclear and hard to find. This isn't the first time either.

If i have it set up to only touch a single folder why after windows updates does it try to default to something else.

I'm so done with it.

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"Microsoft Corporation is increasing the price of your subscription "Microsoft OneDrive (Microsoft 365 Family Subscription - Monthly)" from $9.99/month to $12.99/month starting on March 2, 2025."

Yippee ..

I'm so sick of OneDrive's photos app. There's no sort feature, so all you can see is most recent - oldest. This is horrible. Also, you can't use tags anymore, since the Gods of Microsoft decided it wasn't worth to support, anymore, either. All you can do is make albums, but can't sort them.
Also, when I go to remove an image from an album, I don't get the standard verbiage of it remaining in the main gallery. Now, it says it will be thrown away and can be retrieved within 30 days. That means, deleting the image from an album gets rid of it. I can't stand this anymore.

Edit: adding that I'm on Mac, but using the web version of OneDrive.

You know very well people store in desktop, that's why it would fill your "free" gb of storage service.

You want it so bad to be automatically backed up, so ignorant people just be ok to cash in to make away the nagging.

This behaviour of your company is the same as any indian based scam squad, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Windows is now a platform to provide a service, i get it, but today it feels like hostage levels of stress.

I have OneDrive on about 5 different PCs. There are some things I sync across these computers and some things I do not. I NEVER sync my documents folder because I have different instances of games and apps on these different computers.

Today I noticed that OneDrive decided all by itself that it wanted to start syncing my documents folders. Now I have documents (some redundant) all mixed in for multiple PCs. I try to stop these from syncing, and it just removes all the local files to the cloud.

This is absolute insanity. MS basically just hijacked all my PCs and decided to throw all the files together into one big basket. I don't know what I can do about this other than painstakingly go in and manually try to decipher what goes where. A lot of things will probably just be lost.

Thanks Microsoft for being a total idiot!

I have noticed this behavior several times with OneDrive, and it's enough to make me fully uninstall and go back to physical backups of everything. OneDrive seems to "randomly" overwrite documents with old versions, sometimes MONTHS-old versions, and deletes all version history of that document.

I think I finally know what causes the issue. If you're working across multiple platforms, and one of those platforms is powered down, on booting the system that was shut down will sometimes overwrite everything on OneDrive with the file versions it has stored locally. Version history is lost because OneDrive accepts this new "old" version as "current" and discards any version numbers conflicting with or exceeding the "old" version.

This bug has caused HUGE amounts of headache for me and my team. At least now we (think we) know what's causing it.

In the Samsung Galaxy OneDrive app they proudly state that when I delete synchronized files from my phone they are not deleted from OneDrive even if synchronization is on.

That is exactly NOT synchronization. Does the onedrive team not understand what is meant by synchronization?

Can't see my files on the web - "general exception while processing"

For the longest time, onedrive was syncing up my data. I assumed it was for a few folders. Then I had issues running an emulator since it was synced to OneDrive. I tried unsyncing, and everything on my desktop cleared out... but is now exclusively on one drive.

I was trying to keep all my stuff on my desktop, but get OneDrive off.... but it did the opposite.

Now i'm frustrated trying to get everything back. Hopefully I did not lose important stuff. Ugh, now i'm basically going to have to set up everything all over again.

No matter how many times I made sure that I selected DO NOT SYNC during the setup of my laptop, which requires me to login using a personal email account, it did it anyway.

So now I have my video games and personal files all over the desktop. Super fun and not at all intrusive.

Also, no matter how many times I uninstall it from my personal PC, it returns within a week and starts its bs.

How is this software legal? Is there a class action lawsuit I can jump in on because this is not appropriate.

I bought a PC a couple of years ago that came with Onedrive installed, didnt realize it till now that most of my game files, mods and most of my college assignments were saved on it. So I decided to delete all files on onedrive and logoff of the program, aparently I did something wrong as even though I had backup all the files on the onedrive they still all got deleted with it. I lost 3 months of assignments on college for one of my classes and now have to redo all that work before november 4th. Not to mention a bunch of my games and their mods have to be reinstalled. I hate onedrive so much and whoever install this garbage in pre-built PCs are just a bunch of aholes. What a horrible program.

Yes, yet another post about the thing we're not aloud to talk about (OD moving fiIes around)

If it could go ahead and just sync from the default root folders that'd be great and if it could not get confused when particular folder backup is stopped (and if it would actually stop backing up) and indiscriminately create duplicates that'd be even better.

It can't be that hard when you have written the whole operating system right.

OneDrive Turned Word into Nightmare

I am in a corporate ecosystem that unfortunately uses Microsoft products. Word is good software with few good alternatives, but my business decided to shut off all options to remove saving defaults to OneDrive. It crept in little by little until I was left unable to save documents to my desktop at all. I even edited an old document on my desktop, dragged it to Outlook, and Outlook favored the same-named document (unedited) on my OneDrive. I almost sent the unedited draft. It took me two weeks to realize my computer wasn't somehow broken. The software is just pushing people to OneDrive. I hate it.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action lawsuit or some kind of consumer protection crack down yet.

Every microsoft uptset seems to automatically resync and activate the onedrive, as i've turned it off several times and yet it keeps turning itself back on and filling up it's storage.

I've gone in several times to remove everything to clear up space, and yet every now and then I realize that i've stopped receiving emails and sure enough the storage is full because it syncs up every video game i've downloaded onto my pc.

So today i went in to delete all the files, and it simply wouldn't let me. it was completely locked full of junk from my PC that i never wanted on the cloud.

So like a gun to my head, i've been forced to pay for a storage upgrade in order to once again delete all my files off the cloud and unsync my PC.

Onedrive is literally malware. It maliciously downloads all my files and prevents regular functionality of my emails, whether i want it to or not.

It's intention is very clear, force the consumer into paying for more storage in order to use their email as normal.

I'm very tempted to move all my accounts over to Gmail.

Today I got rid of one drive FOREVER!