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One Drive Folder Keeps Coming Back

Anonymous
2022-05-29T18:13:25+00:00

When I wanted to get rid of One Drive, I deleted the folder (which in turn deleted all my synced folders and files (much superior cloud services like Megasync and Dropbox don't do that).
After I deleted the folder, I re-downloaded everything from the website and it came back. While they're no longer linked and One Drive is nowhere to be found on my PC as an app to uninstall. My Documents folder is still in the directory Users > Me > One Drive > Documents.
And I cannot seem to change it's location, I delete the folder, I try to change it's location from properties. It doesn't disappear.
In fact every time I try to change the location to Users > Me > Documents. It tells me that I cannot because there's already a folder in the same location that cannot be Redirected.

I took to Regedit and tried deleting from there, it does delete, and I can enter the folder afterwards, who's direction is now This PC > Documents.
Because everything One Drive is gone. But upon trying to change the location and receiving the same error.
The folder is back. There is a One Drive folder in my user folder which has a documents folder inside. :/

I have to say, One Drive's implementation is a complete hassle and highly irritating to deal with.
At this point I wonder if I should re-install the one drive app and maybe unlink, in hopes of this stopping. Because I didn't initially know about linking and unlinking.
I just assumed deleting the folder would get me rid of the app (it did in the way that I cannot find it in control panel to uninstall it nor in quick access)

Essentially what I'm trying to do is have the Documents folder on "This PC". The one from the user folders that show up when u boot up "This PC" be the the one that's in This PC > Users > Me (the folder would be here), But instead it's in the One Drive folder.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-05-29T19:13:42+00:00

    Hello ReidReid1,

    I am Jaspreet Singh.

    This issue is caused by the way onedrive handles the automatic backup and to resolve it sadly you will need to reinstall/setup onedrive again.

    Once installed and setup follow these steps :

    Click on the small onedrive cloud icon in your taskbar (You may need to click on the up arrow to see it)

    Then click on help and settings (gear icon in top right hand side) and then again on settings.

    Then in the pop up window click on the first tab (settings)

    Untick the last option that says "save space and download files as you use them"

    (This will start the process of downloading all your data from the cloud back to your device)

    In addition to this untick the first option that says "start onedrive automatically when I sign in to windows " (this will prevent its autostart)

    Once the data has finished downloading (You can verify that by looking at the folders) click on backup tab in the same popup window.

    click on manage backup and untick all three (desktop/documents and pictures)

    once this is done close the backup window (This will return the associated folders back to onedrive root folder or will provide you with a link saying "where is my data" clicking on this link will take you to a folder containing your data and you can move them back to where they were initially with the exception of anything that you deleted)

    At this point please visit www.onedrive.com and compare to your system and look for any data that is still missing in your system. Download it and make a backup since we will unlink onedrive and that data which has not been download will be lost.

    Once you have verified go to the Account tab on the onedrive popup window and click on unlink this pc. Confirm your choice and onedrive will be removed from your file manager (You may not be able to delete onedrive app completely from your system since it is an integrated part of onedrive but it will not longer access your files or back them up)

    One additional step can be to right click on taskbar then click on taskmanager.

    Click on More details at the bottom and then click on Startup tab.

    Search for onedrive in the list (if it is not there you may ignore this step)

    Right click on it and click on disable.

    That is all please let me know if you face any issues.

    30+ people found this answer helpful.
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