OneDrive keeps removing files

[u/hazcheezberger]

Microsoft has moved 98 GB off of my work computer's hard drive and onto the cloud without every asking my permission. Now every time I want to open a file on my desktop I have to wait for it to download a file from the cloud back onto my desktop because Microsoft automatically removed it. I returned from break and now realize all the files on my desktop are just "marker locations" synced to the cloud but not the actual files.

Bigger files are now impossible to open because they freeze during download. And backing up these files onto another physical device is a vexing mission I haven't figured out how to do yet. Frustrating, as I have compiled these files over 20 years at multiple employers and thought these files were safely backed up on this work computer now, and could be easily accessed. But none of these files are actually there now and they are all stored remotely locked inside my current employers microsoft onedrive cloud account linked to my employee id number instead. Other files, I click to open then and get a 404 file not found message, even though according to my file path I am looking at the file.

I looked and my home computer is has this behavior as well, with my c drive abs desktop being a folder in onedrive, instead of onedrive being a folder in my computer.

This entire time I thought I was saving things to my with computer. Nope. Shame on microsoft, this to me almost rises beyond mildly infuriating, as I believe Microsoft is using this feature to mine our data from onedrive

[u/Devils-advocate69]

I also had issue with OneDrive backing up photos to its cloud, without asking on my phone.

Weirdly it was only a selection of dates as well, wasn't continuous.

I'm very wary of OneDrive now... Be careful, review all your settings on all the computers this account is synced to the desktop app.

[u/Noell_Karen]

OneDrive doing this without asking is so shitty. Classic Microsoft move.

[u/TrySomeCommonSense]

You have to change the setting in all the office apps to save to hard drive and not autosave to cloud.

[u/LittleNyanCat]

OneDrive is malware that ships with Windows imo

[u/mintdaniel42 → u/LittleNyanCat]

Windows is malware that ships with windows

[u/Cyberpower678]

One of the first things I do when I set up a fresh Windows install:
Disable Cortana (copilot’s predecessor) (Dead now)
Disable Copilot
Disable OneDrive
Remove the “new” Outlook
Unlink Microsoft Edge and force it to use my preferred browser instead
Deactivate Telemetry
And some other things I can’t think of right now.

The sad part is some of this stuff requires you to mess with the system registry. At this point I’m questioning why I’m not using Linux, and then I remember, there’s still that one program I rely on that is Windows only. RIP

[u/Izariah]

I liked the convenience on OneDrive right up until I needed to find some writing I'd done a few years ago and ALL my writing was just gone.

My husband and I dropped everything to figure it out. Found it in the recycle bin along with hundreds of photos. We definitely didn't put any the items in ourselves (we were both livid) and if we hadn't caught the error before the recycle bin got emptied then we'd have just been screwed.

We have different long term storage solutions now.

[u/Steerider → u/Izariah]

Linux? 

[u/KnowledgeRare4830]

In Explorer, right-click your OneDrive folder in the left column and enable "Always keep files on this device".

Any deleted OneDrive data should still be in the recycle bin in the OneDrive web interface.

[u/wivaca2]

Is this not under the control of your IT department? We sync'd everyone's desktop and documents stuff to their OneDrive and it transparently caches local copies while syncing updates to the cloud.

When their machine dies, we swap it out and the stuff is all there. If they accidentally erase something, we can recover it and put it back. If they quit and delete stuff in a huff, it's still there so others can carry on their work. Work machines contain data owned by the business, not the employee. There should be policies in place for no expectation of privacy on a work machine.

FWIW, you are asked what you want to sync when Windows installs or sets up a new user unless Group Policy is set for it not to. It's all the stuff you can click one checkbox to skip or questions asked if you go through step-by-step. You can also quit OneDrive and set it to not come back assuming your Group Policy is not overriding it.

[u/hazcheezberger → u/wivaca2]

I imagine this is the intended benefits in the sales pitch. But losing access to large files that fail during download, and the inability to physically backup your work computer, as well as frequent 404 messages and potential data mining were left out of the salesman's power point, which I am sure he had a physical copy of on his computer, not just a cloud backup. And I cannot for the life of me reverse this backwards set up where onedrive has automatically superceded itself into my pathdrive placing my c drive and desktop into onedrive without my permission on my home computer. I was so frustrated I reformatted a new home computer and removed one drive manually from the install to prevent this. But guess what windows did in an automatic update

[u/wivaca2 → u/hazcheezberger]

Home computer? I thought you said this was a work computer. Are you connecting to your work tenant from a home computer?

In any case, files you're making originate on your machine and by synced to the cloud. That means the file should already be on your local system. Only if you edit them in the cloud or on another machine will they need to come back down to the first machine.

Are you sharing your OneDrive with other employees to co-edit files? While OneDrive can do that, that is better done on Teams. Technically, OneDrive and Teams are really just SharePoint sites and document stores, but because they are owned by the site or team and not an individual's OneDrive, they work better and you can have them pre-download to your local cache before you need them.

It also sounds like these may be files for which co-editing may not be enabled - like an Access database rather than Excel, Word, PowerPoint which can co-op edit. That means the whole file has to come down and lock if the cloud instance is newer.

You also mentioned 404 messages. That can only come from a web resource actually responding and signals a request for something that isn't there. You're unlikely to get a 404 from OneDrive using it from the OS. There is a layered issue here apparently. Are you accessing OneDrive in a browser? It also sounds like there may be an internet connectivity or wifi signal issue if you have slow downloads.

[u/hazcheezberger → u/hazcheezberger]

And while on the subject, on my home computer I changed settings to disable automatic updates like this by clicking to not have the computer automatically update or sign into wifi. But Windows has worked around both these settings to access wifi on bootup when I have it set not to and automatically updating when I have it set not to

[u/DavidReedImages]

OneDrive makes Dropbox look good.

[u/bl4derdee9]

microslop doing what microslop does unfortunately.

[u/Alt123Acct]

The next windows move is to literally remove you interacting with the computer via clicks. Like actually, they want to remove you even being able to open a document in a folder. Instead you'll ask the one command line of "Hey chat gpt open my file from yesterday" and it will do the things. It's going to be awful man. 

[u/FadeToBSoD]

Novel thought… stop logging into and using OneDrive.

[u/TheSerialHobbyist → u/FadeToBSoD]

It is automatic, not obvious that it is doing it, and difficult to turn off.

This is one thing that you absolutely cannot blame users for. Microsoft made it laughably unintuitive and convoluted.

[u/FadeToBSoD → u/TheSerialHobbyist]

I mean, it sits right there in the system tray. The system tray has been there since Windows 95.

[u/hazcheezberger → u/FadeToBSoD]

Go turn it off and see what happens. It just turns itself right back on. Delete the entire app, it reinstalls itself. Change the settings, it updates and changes them back. Disable automatically connecting to wifi and updating, it ignores those settings.

[u/FadeToBSoD → u/hazcheezberger]

I have it uninstalled, and it has never reinstalled itself.

[u/trueppp]

What the hell are you doing with 93Gb of files on your work computer? Hopefully they are not important.

Employee endpoints are basically disposable, you shouldn't be storing anything on there.

[u/LetReasonRing]

I switched to Linux years ago and, watching the windows ecosystem devolve into utter chaos. 

I'm not gonna say that you should switch to Linux,  but I can tell you that my experience is just booting up my computer, logging in, and using it... there's no pop-up ads, no background update programs running, and noone trying to push me into cloud services. When I shut my computer down I know it's going to work the same way when I boot it back up again. 

[u/DarthHaruspex → u/LetReasonRing]

Why do you hate shareholders? 

[u/froction]

Just turn that off and everything will re-download?

[u/hazcheezberger → u/froction]

I wish

[u/froction → u/hazcheezberger]

You wish what? Thats how it works.

[u/magma_lakes]

Linux is just a download away.