Hundreds of (suddenly) empty folders on OneDrive

Thanks MyK. I DO have an external hard drive and Google photos. For efficiency those folders were my "go to". Any idea how so many folders can have their contents deleted? The folders are all there and still labeled properly, just empty. It creeped me out like someone took control and did it!

Hello Mark,

Thank you for doing the steps. I'm glad that the photos are still within the OneDrive website. I know that it'll be time consuming for you to be able to sort them to folders again. My advice is to have a backup of the photos at least if you have an external hard drive, or enough space in C: Drive.

That way, you have a personal backup locally, while sorting the photos in OneDrive again.

Kind regards, Myk

PS - I do not have a 365 subscription for personal, just business.

Hi Myk and thanks for the quick and thorough reply. I'm not sure if this is considered the "App", but I got to OneDrive via the file folder icon on my bottom task bar and then on the left panel I select Personal OneDrive. Based on your reply I also tried going in through onedrive.live.com and I was easily able to get to the same folder and theyre empty there as well. At the very top of that left navigation bar is a Home icon, then "gallery" and then OneDrive. Interestingly, my photos are all in that gallery icon / app in a single view like Google photos that I use, and I can scroll back to 2014. The challenge is with 10 years of history it's VERY difficult to find anything. I feel good knowing I haven't lost my treasure of photos but completely perplexed how all those folders that were titled and dated emptied at once recently.

Hello Mark N, thanks for coming into forums. I'm Myk, an Independent Advisor and I'll be more than happy to help you.

I’m sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with your OneDrive files. Just to confirm, are you checking the files using the OneDrive app? Or it's through the Onedrive.live.com website?

If it's through the app, try to sign in to Onedrive.live.com website, and check if the files are still showing there using a web browser.

If you’re a Microsoft 365 subscriber, you can restore your entire OneDrive to a previous time. You can use “Files Restore” to undo all the actions that occurred on both files and folders within the last 30 days.

1. Go to the OneDrive website: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=251869 (Make sure you're signed in with the correct account.)
2. A personal account with a Microsoft 365 subscription, at the top of the page, select Settings: update your profile, install software and connect it to the cloud > Options, and then select Restore your OneDrive from the left navigation.
3. On the Restore page, select a date from the dropdown list - such as Yesterday - or select Custom date and time.
4. Use the activity chart and activity feed to review the recent activities that you want to undo.
5. Note: Before you select Restore, scroll to the top of the activity feed to review all the activities you are about to undo. When you pick a day in the activity chart, the more recent activities are hidden in the feed, but they're still selected when you select an activity.
6. When you’re ready to restore your OneDrive, select Restore. This action will undo all the activities you selected.

If you require any further information, then please don’t hesitate to get in contact. I will be more than happy to assist you further.

Kind Regards, Myk