Do Not Use OneDrive to Backup Computer Files!!!

Thank you for the insight into what's happening here. Too late for me unfortunately, I have a destination file in excel which needs hundreds of links to source files updated back to a relative link. My client is furious because they can't access what I provided to them but I least I know that Microsoft have screwed up massively, not me. So frustrating and it feels like Microsoft products are everywhere but practicable help and support no longer exists

"Backup" is a lie. I can't interpret that term in a way that fits to what the function actually does. The comment re:Apple cloud makes it seem very much like Microsoft have a strategic aim of forcing users onto Onedrive by deliberately misleading people. It even calls the folder "documents" which I believed was the documents folder on my SSD. I repeat, deliberately misleading. Is this even legal?

Time is money and the time it will take me to undo Microsoft's mess far exceeds my Windows 365 annual subscription. Not to mention the reputational damage because I didn't understand Backup actually meant relocate.

Is there a better way to backup in the old fashioned sense or is it best to manually copy to a flash drive/ext HD (like we did for windows95)? I guess my solution is to manually copy my files to onedrive when I need to.

I guess Microsoft have no plans to change anything and don't bother with user feedback. Very Tyrannical, "let them hates us, as long as they use us". I agree someone should be fired but one suspects they have been promoted.

Once we have been lured - either by direct decision or surreptitiously as you described above - into OneDrive hell, all our files are now in the cloud and the local "file" is an alias or shortcut. When we open these files, OneDrive downloads them at that time. I believe that clicking this button in the OneDrive settings dialog will instruct OneDrive to maintain the local copy as a real file but it's a small concession in light of all the other wonderful "features" OneDrive bestows upon us.

Also remember that the original location of these files is nothing more than an alias pointing to it's new location in our local OneDrive folder. This, of course, breaks any scripts or other folder and file references we have created in file backup utilities or our own custom scripts and programs. For the regular user who does not play these games, this can actually work. Apple has been doing this for years and getting away with it because Apple users tend to not care as much about the details of where their files are actually stored.

I strongly recommend keeping a wary eye on OneDrive and all of it's unwanted intrusions into Windows Explorer and the Office applications and avoiding activating the backup process for any folder or file. I very happily use the Windows Task Scheduler, some Command and VBScript scripts, and FreeFileSync to keep my different computers synchronized, backed up, and archived. I also use Windows Backup which maintains copies of files on a separate drive - I like this Microsoft function as it's really easy to go back in time to find an older copy of a file - I believe it saves every version that it detects.

OneDrive - and SharePoint - are really designed for sharing files with others not in our domain. And this is a very nice feature that I use often even though it is buggy and has issues with file paths (see my other thread here). But backups of our own files we don't intend to share with others? No way will I ever trust it again.

Kevin

There is nothing to "resolve." There is just a disagreement on terminology and how things should behave.

A big part of the problem is that Microsoft does NOT honor standard names for various concepts. The big one here is the definition and behavior of "backup." OneDrive provides synchronization, not backup.

OneDrive does NOT back things up in the traditional way. Mirroring is NOT the same as backing up. Backup is supposed to protect your data and the biggest threat to YOUR data is YOUR behavior. Backup should let you recover from mistakes. OneDrive does its best to propagate (mirror) your mistakes!

Actually, it is pretty good at doing what it does (synchronizing data across platforms to assist in collaboration) but it is not the best way to protect against data corruption. That's two different problems requiring two different solutions. Microsoft applies the same tool to address both problems, then uses the word "backup" in both cases. People ask for help with actual backup but are given mirroring as the solution and calling that backup! It appears to be a conflation deliberately designed to oversell their product.

I'm pretty sure you have not tried this OneDrive "feature" or you would not have stated what you did. For those just tuning in, backing up is a one-way copy of a set of folders and files. Mirroring is a two-way synchronization between two more more folder file spaces. As Bertilak stated, OneDrive is a mirroring or synchronization service and nothing else.

When we give OneDrive permission to do the whole backup/mirror/whatever to our main document folders, everything in those folders is moved to another location on our computer before being mirrored to the cloud. Everything. Which breaks every script and utility that depends on those folders and files being in a certain location. This is the subject of this thread.

Along with that are the incessant nags to use OneDrive both inside and outside Office apps. There is no known way to tell OneDrive to just cease and desist.

This is where disaster lurks:

A final note on OneDrive's overall reliability as a folder file synchronization tool: it sucks. I have countless examples of where it fails to correctly mirror documents and folders. My clients and I have to routinely shut it down and restart it to get it to synchronize recently modified files. When we announce a recently posted change, we include the date time stamp in that announcement to ensure they see the latest copy. Sometimes we skip all that unreliable stuff and just email the documents to each other. That's not a good testimonial on the quality and reliability of OneDrive.

Kevin

Totally agree whoever approves this OneDrive "backup" feature should be fired and should not be hired by any other IT company.

It is moving files to OneDrive, not copying, aka, backing up the files at all. Not only is Microsoft committing false advertising, the number of privacy, security violations it creates would be threatening. If someone thought OneDrive is merely a copy, they may also delete it, causing intellectual property loss.

This may potentially bring down Microsoft, if the right person click the right button at the right time.

I ran to this exact problem one time I had to move a folder out of my desktop into my hard drive. If it is smart enough to automatically start up, it's supposed to be also smart enough to back off when necessary. It keeps saving my games in my documents, and if I turn off the back up feature, it doesn't return my stuff to their original place and I have to do the manual labor of setting up shop once again. Also, the OneDrive shortcut created can be annoying because of the clutter it provides.

In a way, I wouldn't have mind having this feature. Since I like having some data up there in the cloud for easier access and convenient saving. But is there really a way to just have it back off like telling someone to not just, mess around with things?