The local OneDrive folder, the PC Documents folder, OneDrive backup and sync. How does it work and what is happening to me?

Question

I was recently trying to clear some space on my work laptop. I realized I wasn't really using the OneDrive folders on my sidebar so without really understanding what I was doing I unsynced it. It didn't really clear any space (I didn't expect it to since as far as I knew, I hadn't actually saved anything on there). I clicked on Documents on my PC and saw that about 2/3rds of my files and folders were missing! After panicking for a good while, I went and looked at my OneDrive folder online. Some of my missing files were there online but not all of them. I re-synced OneDrive and went to the documents folder under OneDrive on my PC (C:\Users\adhitir\OneDrive\Documents). The missing 2/3rds were here.

Now a sync has started that is currently uploading these 2/3rds in the local OneDrive folder to the cloud. Before I messed with anything I didn't understand fully, I plugged in my external hard drive in and copied the contents from both of these Documents folders onto my drive. The 1/3rd on my PC copied with no issues, but the 2/3rd that were in the OneDrive folder wouldn't copy so easily. Apparently I can't copy files as they are syncing. I tried to pause the sync, but the files that were "mid-upload" wouldn't copy either. I just wasted six hours trying to copy these files. I kept copying and skipping the files that were already copied hoping that as they finished syncing, the files I couldn't copy earlier were becoming available to copy.

Anyway, now I think I have managed to rescue every file I thought I'd lost.

Now please tell me how I can restore my documents folder to its original state. I want the Documents folder under OneDrive to merge back with the Documents folder inside This PC.

How do I prevent this from happening again? From my research, it seems that OneDrive automatically creates a backup of Documents and Desktop on the cloud. I don't mind that it does this, but it looks like that didn't fully work either. The folder in the cloud was missing a lot of files.

It also seems like the Documents and Desktop folder under C:/user/OneDrive was somehow connected to the Documents and Desktop folder under C:/user/This PC. But somehow not all the files under it?? I tried to see if I could find some logic in the files that got left behind vs the files that were inside C:/user/OneDrive, but I can't seem to find a pattern. Some were new, some were old, some were large and some were small.

Now when I open OneDrive settings and look at the option to "Manage Folder Backup", it's looking at the significantly reduced Documents and Desktop folders under C:/user/This PC. It says that only 9 files in this folder already exist in the backup. I'm afraid that if I start the backup now, it will erase the files that are inside the documents folder under C:/user/OneDrive. Or will it merge the contents?

Surprisingly I'm not having the same problem with files in the Desktop folders. All of the files under This PC are the same as the files under OneDrive. Many files now have a cloud icon in front of them which means they have freed up the space belonging to the local copy. Some of the files that are still on the hard drive are waiting to sync with the online folder. All the files here were always on the hard drive. I never saw any of the one drive icons in front of them before. If I click on "Always keep on this device", I'm guessing it will re-download all the files that are on the cloud back to the hard drive.

I have so many questions -- firstly, what exactly happened? As it uploads files from my desktop to the drive during this syncing process, it seems to be freeing up the space (status shows a cloud). But as it is syncing the files in OneDrive/Documents, some of them are being replaced with a solid green check mark (indicating it should always exit on my hard drive) and some files have a non-solid green check mark (indicating that it exists on my drive) and some are replaced with a cloud icon (indicating this space has freed up). I didn't specify that it do this, by the way.

Why is the Documents folder under This PC not connected with the OneDrive version anymore but the Desktop folder is?

If my PC automatically backed up files to the online folder all this while, why didn't I ever see the status icons before?

Also, why did it only back up some files and not the others?

During syncing now, it seems like the files that already existed in the cloud are being replaced with a cloud icon where as the ones that weren't there before are still on my PC.

How can I restore my Documents folder to the way it was?

*** Moved from windows Category by Microsoft Moderator

Answer 1

OneDrive is not a backup, it’s a cloud location of your data.

.

The default installation of Office 365 and its OneDrive component uploads all the contents of the PC  \My Documents\ folders to OneDrive, (syncs) and there will be a OneDrive folder in File Explorer containing all the OneDrive content. And in Word etc the default Save location is set to OneDrive.

And as such there will be no docs on your PC in the \My Documents\ Folder set

Answer 2

"Now please tell me how I can restore my documents folder to its original state. I want the Documents folder under OneDrive to merge back with the Documents folder inside This PC."

Go to the "Manage folder backup" window you see in the video below. Click "Stop backup" under those folders.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/back-up-your-documents-pictures-and-desktop-folders-with-onedrive

Perhaps you deleted some files thinking that this will stop them from uploading to OneDrive. Deleting files will send them to the online recycle bin. Did you check the online recycle bin?

Check the location of the folders under "This PC" by right-clicking the folder > Properties > Location. If they are backing up to OneDrive then the location will be in OneDrive. If the backup is turned OFF then the folders should be in their default locations.

This explains what the OneDrive icons mean: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-do-the-onedrive-icons-mean

I probably haven't answered all your questions but hopefully, I have helped somewhat.

     [![Image](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/08975468-342a-4cfd-9c1c-47605990e939?platform=QnA

Answer 3

I'm not sure that's fully true.

Originally, all my files were in Documents. I wasn't fully aware of the OneDrive sync so I never noticed what was being stored online before.

But when my files vanished when I unlinked OneDrive, about a third of my files were still under the traditional documents folder.

After this whole fiasco, when I when through the process of syncing OneDrive again, the default value of my documents folder shifted to show OneDrive, like you said. Now I copied the contents of the old folder over so at least I have everything in one place again.

I'm have really annoying sync issues now (see the comment I made below). I have some git repos in the documents folder an I'm having really annoying trouble with some git commands that seem to be again related to the same onedrive messy sync issues.

Answer 4

I didn't delete anything. I'm 100% sure about that.

Files simply just vanished. I'm having another annoying issue today. I wasn't able to pull code from git and it seems to again be a OneDrive issue. One of the files under the .git folder seemed to have gotten corrupted during sync (it wouldn't sync). (Similar to the issue detailed here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70769747/git-error-unable-to-create-temprary-file-error-building-trees-with-no-further The first time I came across the issue I did want the person who answered suggested. The second time I wasn't able to delete the offending folder at all.

I couldn't copy, move or delete or modify the folder because one file under .git/objects/ would not sync. I stopped one drive too. Nothing seemed to work.

I have now given up and moved all my data to box drive. I can't seem to do anything about the OneDrive sync or its many issues.

I wondered about the whole backup thing. I guessed that when I unlinked OneDrive the backup must have been off for some time which is why only some of the folders were backed up. But there didn't seem to by any "time" boundary. Many of the files that vanished were fairly new ones.