OneDrive Recycling Bin: One of the provided arguments is not acceptable

Question

OneDrive Recycling Bin: One of the provided arguments is not acceptable

TheNextBillGates 0

I turned off OneDrive sync for my picture folder because I needed to move the folder from the C to the D drive. When I turned off sync for that one folder, it deleted any items that weren't saved locally on my PC (where OneDrive had tried to 'save space' by keeping them only online). For some unknown reason, it also deleted those same files from OneDrive online. No idea why.

I frantically try to restore - but the deletions don't show up in OneDrive 'restore' - it's as if it never happened. It's not on my PC's recycling bin because they weren't stored locally. I did find them in the OneDrive online recycling bin, but not in folders, just as individual files - thousands of them.

However, now I can't restore them. When I try, I get the errors you see below.

I tried emailing support, but I see it's just an AI response that has no idea how to handle this.

Any ideas? Literally 25 years of photos sitting there.

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3 answers

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Answer 1

Good news, indeed!

To save hard disk space while keeping files in the cloud, you should use the Files On-Demand feature in OneDrive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzIA9uykIhE&t=43s

It's also possible to move the entire OneDrive folder to a larger drive. But you must do it by the book. Wait until OneDrive is fixed before attempting that.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-location-of-your-onedrive-folder-f386fb81-1461-40a7-be2c-712676b2c4ae

You don't need to move the existing OneDrive folder. If you unlink OneDrive from the existing folder and re-link it to a new empty folder named "OneDrive," all your files will download to that new folder.

Answer 2

Well, some good news. I was trying a few files at a time (one page as shown in the screenshot) but Craig mentioned trying the WHOLE recycling bin at one time...scrolling down until I hit the end, selecting all, and restoring. It took me a long time to scroll down through thousands of photos.

As expected, it failed with a similar error except the red text shown above didn't appear. I gave up on this last night and came back the next day to try to start 1-by-1 trying to restore these files. It's been a daily routine.

However today, I noticed there was only like 5 items in the recycling bin. I freaked out at first thinking the files were deleted somehow (it's only been like 3 days) but apparently that big restore that I attempted last night actually worked at some point overnight.

So, the solution I presume is to select all your recycling bin items and click restore, ignore the error message and check back the next day to see if they magically were restored.

As for why all these photos were deleted just because I turned off the backup for the Pictures folder in OneDrive settings? Unknown.

Answer 3

Craig Long 17,825

Turning off the Pictures folder sync in Manage Backup changes the default save location for new pictures from OneDrive (C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Pictures) to your computer (C:\Users\username\Pictures). It does not automatically move the existing pictures stored in OneDrive. You must move them yourself. But since OneDrive is still syncing, any files you remove from the OneDrive folder will be removed online as well.

If you want to keep your files online-only, keep them in the OneDrive folder, but right-click them and select "Free up space".

See this video about Files On-Demand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzIA9uykIhE&t=43s

To restore all your files, go to the online recycle bin at onedrive.com. Scroll down to the last file in the list. Hold down the Shift key and select the last file in the list. Now all files should be ticked. Click "Restore" at the top.

TheNextBillGates 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T04:02:56.4+00:00

The whole point of the post is that I can’t restore them from the recycling bin. See the photo.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T07:22:26.9633333+00:00

Try to restore your entire OneDrive to a previous time: Restore your OneDrive
TheNextBillGates 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T13:07:12.2266667+00:00

The 'restore' screen did not show the deletions. It only showed a few minor things I had done manually, it did not show the 10k+ deletions the app performed automatically when I de-sync'd.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T17:53:45.7033333+00:00

Are you doing it like this?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nkurkEov0
TheNextBillGates 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T18:03:15.5966667+00:00

Yes. In the list of changes you would expect there to be all the deletes that occurred. They are not there. But there is 1000's of my deleted files in the Recycling Bin.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T19:26:42.8066667+00:00

Are you saying you have thousands of files in your recycle bin and can't select any of them?

See how they can be selected and restored here: https://youtu.be/vlYCp02txK4?t=142

Personal accounts don't have the second-stage recycle bin shown in the video.
TheNextBillGates 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T19:47:50.66+00:00

I can select them, but when I click restore I get the error shown in the screenshot.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T20:08:37.6933333+00:00

If you select all the files in the recycle bin, all at once, as I suggested earlier by scrolling down to the last file, and click "Restore", do you still get these errors?

If so, all I can suggest is to contact support. You should be able to request a callback here: https://support.microsoft.com/contactus.

I won't be able to help with problems pertaining to your online account.
TheNextBillGates 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T20:33:16.4466667+00:00

I hadn't tried, as the screenshot showed it broke on page 1 (101 selected).

Just tried all of them...took a long while to scroll...and same error.

I already reached out to support and they said restore them 1 by 1 lol.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T21:12:13.1666667+00:00

I see that you said your files were never available locally. But you can try finding your missing files on your computer. You can try data recovery software to look for deleted files.

Maybe Windows File Recovery will help: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-file-recovery-61f5b28a-f5b8-3cc2-0f8e-a63cb4e1d4c4

If you can’t locate a lost file from your backup, then you can use Windows File Recovery, which is a command line app available from the Microsoft Store. Use this app to try to recover lost files that have been deleted from your local storage device (including internal drives, external drives, and USB devices) and can’t be restored from the Recycle Bin. Recovery on cloud storage and network file shares is not supported.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T21:16:26.52+00:00

Professional data recovery services are expensive, but they are the best option if files were stored locally on your PC.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-12T23:19:28.0433333+00:00

Where it says "Progress: 101 items weren't restored", try removing those notifications by clicking the X on each. Then, refresh the page and try restoring files from the recycle bin again.
TheNextBillGates 0 Reputation points

2026-03-13T12:57:28.47+00:00

I tried various sizes and found that sometimes one page (101) worked and sometimes it didn't; rarely two pages worked, usually it didn't; and anything larger than that hardly ever worked. So I started trying 1 page at a time and refreshing the page each time. It would have taken hours but I figured I had 30 days to get it done so I just got to it.

Then, today I found the recycling bin was nearly empty and the files restored. I can only guess that trying everything like we did above somehow actually did finish last night even though it errored out.
Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points

2026-03-13T18:00:47.71+00:00

Well, we are making progress.

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OneDrive Recycling Bin: One of the provided arguments is not acceptable

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