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Reconnect onedrive after unlinking without having to sync all files again?

Anonymous
2024-01-24T18:51:58+00:00

During an incident where OneDrive was extremely slow to sync, I unfortunately followed an advice to unlink my PC and link it again. Now OneDrive wants to upload all my local files to the cloud as dublets (same file name followed by computer name). We are talking about 900 GB of video and photos and I am syncing via 4G so I clearly want to avoid that. Isn't there a way to tell it that the files are already synced, and they are the same?

(My issue was a a different one. It turns out, that when you have an iPhone uploading photos to a folder that is sync'ed by OneDrive, then things go haywire. Onedrive told me that, when I reconnected).

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  1. Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points
    2024-01-28T21:44:46+00:00

    Unlinking from OneDrive is not a good idea unless you want to move the OneDrive folder to a new location. If necessary unlink OneDrive for a short time otherwise the files may not be recognized as the same files, but as different files that need to be uploaded to OneDrive.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-02-05T20:55:46+00:00

    Hello Michael

    I have solved my sync'ing problem for now. It was a matter of moving the large movie files (1 - 5 GB) out of a OneDrive sync'ed area, then letting OneDrive sync the remaining files and then moving the large files back, one by one. OneDrive attempts to sync multiple large files at once, meaning that it will never finish any of them, even if I let my PC stay open for several days. You can throttle bandwidth, but you cannot throttle the number of files that it attempts to sync concurrently.

    And - as Craig pointed out - apparently, it is bad idea to unlink the PC and then relink it. It is an advice I found on the net when troubleshooting the poor sync'ing speed which I now believe is due to dead-lock between several sync'ing processes (OneDrive, iOS, G-drive), I must find a way to let these processes sync to another area.

    Thanks for help, both of you.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-02-05T21:24:18+00:00

    I think that you should mark your own post and that of Craig's as the answer. It would be very helpful as it is a problem that is problem that arises in various guises.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-01-25T22:57:54+00:00

    Hi Claus.

    Thank you for writing to us here in the Microsoft community.

    Regarding your concern about a way to tell it that the files are already sync. There should be an icon where you can know what the state of the OneDrive. You can check the OneDrive state here on link: What do the OneDrive icons mean? - Microsoft Support. If there are any duplicates, OneDrive will tell you or guide you to delete the file. Something like in the picture. Just click on sync issue to resolve it.

    Usually, you need an application for iCloud to sync with OneDrive. You need to manually transfer the data into OneDrive to fully sync it. Allow me to ask a few questions regarding your concern.

    1. Can you post a screen shot about your iCloud syncing to OneDrive?
    2. Can you tell me what type of subscription you have?

    I hope you find this information helpful.

    Regards,

    Michael Jr

    Microsoft Moderator

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-01-28T17:41:30+00:00

    Thanks Michael. I really appreciate any human help with this issue. So hard to reach a human these days.

    Seems I was logged onto this site with the wrong account. Should be corrected now. I have a Personal Microsoft 365 account with 1 TB of Cloud Storage included.

    I have seen the error message that you shared with me under other circumstances but it did not happen here. I just noticed how Onedrive syncing on my Windows 11 x64 computer did not finish for days. When watching WiFi bitrate in "Task manager" there were occasional bursts but nothing serious going on. I assume the two syncing processes, iCloud and OneDrive were competing with each other and ended up in a dead-lock of some kind: One waiting for the other and other waiting for the first. It was not until after I had unlinked my PC and tried to link it again that I got a message about "Another Cloud syncing software connected to the same file system" (or something similar - I do not have a screenshot of that). After I had disabled "iCloud sync", I could link my PC to OneDrive again. But that is when I realised that it wanted to sync all my photo and video files again. They were all made "Keep on this device" and they are still there, locally. I just want to tell OneDrive that it does not have to upload them for comparison and sync again, but that is what it seems to be doing right now.

    I wanted to share a screenshot and this system says that "Image inserted successfully" but then it does not show. Anyway it just just shows how my computer is trying to upload the same 3.2 GB Video file for comparison. It has tried that for a week now, never finishing. When I pause sync'ing to do other things requiring bandwidth, it starts all over again.

    My computer is a stationary PC with an x64 based CPU, 8 GB of RAM, Windows 11 Pro, version 10.0.22000 Build 22000, fully patched. It is connected to a WiFi router that connects to the internet over a 4G connection.

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