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Onedrive Deleted everything on my desktop and I can't recover anything.

Anonymous
2025-03-23T18:04:26+00:00

I'm in desperate help because all I did was sign in to Onedrive and all of my desktop files disappeared. I lost all of my work and all of my icons for the things I used in my daily work. All I was wanting to do initially was make my lockscreen dynamic again so I was prompted to sign into Onedrive to update it. When I signed in all of my icons were gone on my desktop and those that were left started receiving green checks and clouds next to them. I panicked and tried to pause the Onedrive sync and it wouldn't allow me to so I deleted the Onedrive folder that was on my PC, hoping that was halt whatever it was making backups of. Since then I can't find or recover anything that's been lost. I've lost important documents dating from years ago to the most recent files I was working on literally hours ago. I've checked the Onedrive recycle bin and there's nothing there and I can't even simply find my most recent XML document from when I last worked on it yesterday. Please if anyone has any direction I need to go with.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For education | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-07-19T05:50:55+00:00

    Hi Kevin, If you go to>This PC\C:\Users\UserName you will see all your files on C: Drive, including the Blue OneDrive Folder. Everything in that folder is on OneDrive everything else is on C Drive and not on OneDrive. You can move you files or if you have enough space copy then back onto C Drive. Have a look at the video below:

    Can you sign into OneDrive online: https://onedrive.live.com/ 

    The Problem With OneDrive Backup

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-03-23T18:52:43+00:00

    I can't stress enough thank you for your rapid response. The issue is when I panicked I don't think it fully configured or syncronized or whatever it needs to do before deleting and uninstalling Onedrive. I looked through my Onedrive folders with the link you posted and there's nothing there recent. The earliest file there was something from 2023 that wasn't anything related to the files I lost today unfortunately. I checked on other devices and they also have the same result. I was recommended to use Wondershare and was able to find the missing files that was deleted by Onedrive, although that's a paid app and Onedrive deleted thousands of import docs. I think I broke something when I deleted part of the Onedrive folder and uninstalling it. Will Onedrive fully recover everything if I download it again, let it fully resync, and do whatever it needs to do?

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-07-19T03:57:22+00:00

    have you got any answer because same thing happens to me my c drive get filled and due to panic i saw at two places my desktop is present so i deleted in one drive desktop icon and it had deleted all my files and and after retriving from recycle bin out of 40 GB data only 7 GB came back rest gone so i had stopped syncing one drive and shortly opt for any other option will never use this dat theft machine or data theft cloud in panic i had also deleted videos from another drive and emptied recycle bin to retrive data but then also nothing retrived and Microsoft is saying 24X7 services but they are not available on saturday and sunday then what will happen to that person who had faced difficulty in friday what about their mental stress and heartbeat of losting data, no such customer care response in India and biggest market we are covering but facility like this we have to think for another option now then, please support if any body reading from Microsoft community this one drive is user enemy not user friendly

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-03-23T18:27:20+00:00

    Hello,
    no stress as you're using OneDrive locally it should synchronize to the online OneDrive if you already configured.
    to do that follow the steps below :

    • If you've signed in with OneDrive, your files should be stored in the cloud as well. Sign into OneDrive on the web and look through your folders to check if they are available there.
    • Check the OneDrive version history: If your files are there but not in their most recent form, you can try restoring them to an earlier version.
    • If you have Windows File History set up, you might be able to restore your lost files. Type "Restore your files with File History" in the Windows search bar, and see if you can recover the files from an earlier backup.
    • If you've signed in to OneDrive on other devices, your files may still exist on them. Check any other PCs, laptops, or mobile devices where you have OneDrive syncing enabled.

    Regards,

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