How do I get my Documents and Pictures folders back on my local disk from OneDrive?

Question

How do I get my Documents and Pictures folders back on my local disk from OneDrive?

J BN4 45

One Drive seems to have deleted all the files on my hard drive (though storage has not gone up). How do I get the files back on my hard drive and stop OneDrive from deleting in the future?

**Moved from Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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Answer 1

EmilyS726 264.6K Independent Advisor

Hello,

If your OneDrive desktop app is running, please do the following:

Right click on the OneDrive cloud icon on the lower right on your taskbar to go to Settings.
On the "Sync and Backup" tab, click on "Advanced Settings" to expand that section. Then under File On-Demand, click on "Download all files".
Give it plenty of time to allow the files to be downloaded from the online cloud. On your computer's file explorer, you can observe the OneDrive folder and its folders/files inside. You want all of the green checkmark icon to turn solid green with a white checkmark. Depends on how many files you have, this process can take a while, so please be patient.
Once all of the folders and files turn into the solid green icon with white checkmark, you can go back to OneDrive Settings. Very important - click on "Manage Backup" button, then turn off all folders listed there.
After you turn off the folders sync in Step 4, now go to Account tab, click on "Unlink this PC"
Go to your Windows Settings > Apps, find OneDrive and uninstall it.

brian 0 Reputation points

2025-09-06T05:41:39.7733333+00:00

@EmilyS726 Thank you for your answer, I think I moved everything to where it was.

But could you possibly explain why Microsoft decided to delete so much from my computer without asking? I installed Onedrive to enter the Rewards contest and ran it expecting it to be a, you know, BACKUP not touching my files where they are.

I just discovered this because I have shortcuts set on my Logitech keyboard to run little scripts. I have the scripts saved in C:\Users\Brian\Documents. When I went to launch...well 1.25 GB of files were GONE.

Thanks to your instructions I was able to find the files. BUT the download did not put them back where they were. It put them into C:\Users\Brian\OneDrive. So I moved the contents of Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures....Why?

I'm sorry to ask you but my brain is failing to comprehend the reason for a backup to delete the originals...and not only do that but to not put them back where they were. I have never heard of a backup which after running it leaves things nonfunctional.
EmilyS726 264.6K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-09-06T18:03:14.6266667+00:00

Brian, no need to apologize for asking legitimate questions.

I cannot speak on behalf of Msft (as I am independent), but I share the same frustration as I've been helping many users in similar situation, who thought OneDrive was to "backup" their data. The term "backup" is extremely misleading, because technically speaking, backup is one-way sync. However, OneDrive works as two-way sync, hence, when you move or delete a file on either side, it will sync to the other side.

This is why when I set up computer, I always right away turn off folders back up in OneDrive right away. If I need any files synced to OneDrive, I would manually create my own folder(s) in the OneDrive folder, and manually move my files there instead. It is the "Let me go to OneDrive instead of OneDrive coming to me" approach if that makes sense.
J BN4 45 Reputation points

2025-09-06T22:01:35.95+00:00

Emily, I was able to find most of my files on OneDrive and move them back to my Hard Drive, but in the process, the original file was moved back and a COPY. So I now have ten of thousands of COPY's on my computer hard drive. Is there anyway to do a global delete of the COPY's?
EmilyS726 264.6K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-09-06T22:26:59.13+00:00

For the copies, do they have a pattern for their file names?

For example, do they all end with the word "copy" in the file name
J BN4 45 Reputation points

2025-09-07T15:17:36.4266667+00:00

Yes they do
EmilyS726 264.6K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-09-07T15:26:37.65+00:00

Ok, then the quickest and somewhat safer way is to open the folder in File Explorer, in the search, type in the word "copy" to search.

Then click on "Search options", change it to "current folder", and uncheck everything else if they were checked, especially "system files" and "file contents".

By doing it this way, you can review the search results before you select them all to delete.
J BN4 45 Reputation points

2025-09-07T15:47:48.01+00:00

Thank you for this answer. Of note, it will take me a great deal of time as I have hundreds, if not thousands, of folders.
EmilyS726 264.6K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-09-07T16:08:23.62+00:00

You are welcome. You can check the "sub folder" in that search option dropdown in that case to speed up the process. I do recommend glancing through, as you might have file that contains the word "copy" that may not be a dup of another file..