Do Not Use OneDrive to Backup Computer Files!!!

Just wait until you get the new screen when you log in or turn the computer on saying: "LET'S FINISH SETTING UP YOUR DEVICE" It looks exactly like the previous nag messages, but when you click next, it says "BACK UP YOUR FILES WITH ONE DRIVE!" and the only choices are "next" and "I'll finish setting up my device later" Not, go away, not I'll never do this, just next or I'll do it later.

And it used to be when you hit next it'll ask you what folders you want to sync to OneDrive, which isn't a backup service like it lies to you claiming it is, but it is a syncing service, so every device has the exact same files and folder structure.

Anyways when you hit next now it doesn't ask you what folders you want to sync it just blanket assumes you want to sync all the others you aren't yet!

I have multiple computers. Yes I want the pictures and documents to be synced between for work flow.

But not bloody desktops.

Each computer does a different purpose.

My gaming and VR computer has the programs and desktop shortcuts and backgrounds for gaming.

My school and work laptops are dedicated only for those purposes.

I don't want my gaming desktop to suddenly look exactly like my work laptop with shortcuts that don't work because those programs aren't on this computer.

I really don't understand why it's so hard for Microsoft to just listen to us and give us the option to turn off these invasion of privacy and assumption of consent services they try to shovel at us.

I'll keep my opinions about the OneDrive app to myself. (I don't want to get blocked here again.)

I have advised posters to disable both syncing and Bitlocker as soon as they start to use their PC.

The OneDrive app will start syncing your folders as soon as Windows has finished installing, without any notification to you or explanation of what it's doing. This is very confusing to users and causes much anxiety. Here - in my opinion - is what you need to do as soon as you start to use your PC for the first time:

1- Open the OneDrive app's settings and turn off syncing.

2- Still in the OneDrive app's settings, empty the list of files and folders that the app syncs to OneDrive.

After you do this, all syncing will stop, and if syncing was to somehow recommence, there will be nothing for the app to sync. You are now back in control of your personal files and folders.

3- Change the default location of your personal folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos) from the OneDrive folder ...

C:\Users\your user account\OneDrive\

... to your user profile ...

C:\Users\your user account\Desktop, Documents, etc.

It's even better to store your personal folders on on a separate partition: D:\Users\your user account\ ...

After you do this, the OneDrive folder should be empty.

4- Go to your OneDrive [ https://onedrive.live.com  ] and review what the OneDrive app was able to do before you stopped it from syncing. If you see duplicate files, decide which copy you will keep (i.e., the copy in your OneDrive or the copy on your hard drive) and delete the other copy. If you see different versions of the same file, decide which version to keep.

Having done all the above, you are once again the master of your own data. You will decide what will live on your hard drive, what will live on your OneDrive, and what will be synced. Don't forget: You can always upload files to your OneDrive manually, by dragging and dropping, and you can always download your files manually from your OneDrive.

Now is the time to learn about how the OneDrive app works, and decide how you will use it, if you want to.

Backing up to the cloud, whether that's OneDrive or any other cloud storage service, is certainly better than not backing up at all. For someone who doesn't backup, or doesn't know how to backup, they could do much worse than letting the OneDrive app backup for them. However, backing up to the cloud has disadvantages, including:

* no versioning;

* can get very expensive;

* it's slow

* no way to verify a backup's integrity

* no imaging - just files and folders

Perhaps the single biggest disadvantage to making cloud backup your only backup is this: If you ever lose access to your cloud account - if it gets hacked or stolen or you forget your password - you have lost your backup, along with everything else you've stored in the cloud.

The cloud is better for archiving. A copy of my wedding video is stored in the cloud. Archiving means storing extra copies of important files that will rarely, if ever, change. And it should not be your only archive.

For months I kept seeing a message box asking me to tell OneDrive to "back up important PC folders to OneDrive". It was relentless and no matter how many times I declined (I have ample backup services already in place), I kept seeing the message at least once a day. I finally relented and turned on backup just to get the daily messaging to stop.

The next day all of my desktop files and shortcuts were gone and various apps and scripts dependent on files and file paths stopped working. After some detective work I discovered that OneDrive had moved ALL of my files to the OneDrive directory! OK, turning off backup should solve the problem, right? Nope. All of the files on my desktop remained missing and nothing was restored to its original locations.

I then started moving files and folders from the OneDrive folder back to my documents and other folders only to find out that some files were in some strange "pending sync" state or just busy and could not be moved. Other files were already magically moved back to the original locations if they were used (Excel Add-Ins, Outlook PST files, SQL Server database files, etc.) Things were getting messy fast and my preferred backup and archiving scripts and applications were propagating the mess to my other drives.

After a few hours of work I have finally restored my files and folders to their previous state. Microsoft Support - yes, I called them at one point out of shear anger and frustration - told me to to turn off the "Notify me when syncing is paused" to stop the messaging - we'll see if that stops the annoying messaging.

Bottom line: Do not, under any circumstances, use OneDrive to backup your files. It's an unmitigated disaster and the people who designed this function should be fired.

I'm having this problem right now, but I don't know how to fix it. Onedrive seems to have gotten stuck and the tray icon says "Uploading 3.0 MB of 59.4 GB at 0.0 KB/s, 16,980 files remaining" for the past week! How do I stop this madness and just go back to where I can actually find my files in File Explorer again?

There is no easy solution.

The first step is to turn off the OneDrive backup feature - and even that is kind of lame because you are really telling OneDrive to not back up specific folders. Unless it is completely purged from your system, it will always be running, and always trying manically to get you to let it back up everything. There is no one switch or setting to tell it to just back off on everything backup.

Keep all of these options off at all times.

Once you have all the specific folder backup toggles off, you can start the laborious process of moving all your files out of the OneDrive folders back to their original locations. And watch for files that are locked for synching - the Windows file system won't let you move them in this case. I can't remember what I did to unlock them but it was probably a reboot. Another idea to help this process is to, using a utility like CCleaner, temporarily disable the OneDrive service(s) from loading at startup.

Good luck!

Note that Dropbox has the same feature and will do the same thing with all your files. But at least Dropbox has a master switch and doesn't nag every damn day and doesn't integrate itself into our applications.

Kevin

It's getting worse.

Every time I open Windows Explorer I see this:

I click it (there is no other option and right-clicking does nothing) and this dialog is displayed:

No options to disable this nag. I turn off all folders...

...and click OK. The next time I open Windows Explorer, there it is...again...and again.

Please, Microsoft, stop being so aggressively money hungry and give us the ability to say "I'll use OneDrive but only for specific files and only when I decide to put them into the OneDrive folder. And don't show me any nags."

I would uninstall this garbage and use only Dropbox if I could but one of my biggest clients insists on using it to share files so, for now, I'm screwed.