Onedrive sucks, how to remove it from Windows 11 Pro?

Hello,

I hate this feature too. But yes, there's a way to sort this out.

If your OneDrive is still installed now, you can use this set of instruction:

1. Right click on the OneDrive cloud icon on the lower right on your taskbar to go to Settings.
2. Go to Sync and Backup tab > Manage Backup button, turn all these folders off.
3. After you turn off the folders sync in Step 2, now go to Account tab, click on "Unlink this PC"
4. Go to your Windows Settings > Apps, find OneDrive and uninstall it. Restart the computer.

5., You might need to download your files back from www.onedrive.com if your files are not present in your now local folders.

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If your OneDrive has already been uninstalled, Please type regedit in the search on the taskbar to launch registry editor, and go to this path, then take a screenshot and share in your reply.

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

I will then show you how to edit it here.

Thanks, but what you suggest I do is to completely remove the Microsoft account from this machine, and that would lead to several nightmares and time wasted. What I want is to simply stop syncing the Documents and the Pictures folder so whenever I save anything to them, they don't sync to Onedrive, they stay just in this computer. In macOS, that's very simple, you uncheck the folders you want to remove from iCloud syncing.

In Windows, it's a nightmare. Before I read your post, I did the first two steps. Then I also went to the Account tab in the Onedrive settings and clicked on "Choose folders", and once inside, I unchecked them all. So we already have two steps in Onedrive when in iCloud there's only one, you choose which folders you want in iCloud Drive. But the fact that is two steps is very secondary to what followed.

When you deselect the Documents folder in the iCloud settings, it does the obvious. It simply moves the folder from the local location of the documents folder to the root of the user folder. And if you enable the Documents folder to be part of the iCloud drive again, it simply moves it back to another location in the drive that is several levels deep, and is the location of the iCloud Drive in the Mac's local storage.

But when you do the same in Windows 11, it just deletes the contents of your Onedrive Documents folder!!!! It doesn't move it to the user home folder, it just deletes it!! I just don't get these Microsoft people, how can they be so blatantly stupid??? So they think that if a user wants to stop syncing the documents and the pictures folder to Onedrive they need to be deleted???? Really, I just don't get the insane level of stupidity these people have.

It seems that you misunderstood the concept of o365 and probably confused by MS Marketings use of the word “Backup”

OneDrive is not a backup, it’s a cloud location of your data.

Where in my post did you read the word "backup"? I didn't mention anything about backups, I was clearly talking about Onedrive as the Microsoft version of Apple's iCloud drive, with the latter being a cloud drive that actually works and the former a garbage service that doesn't.

The default installation of Office 365 and its OneDrive component uploads all the contents of the PC \My Documents\ folders to OneDrive, (syncs) and there will be a OneDrive folder in File Explorer containing cached copy of all the OneDrive content. And in Word etc the default Save location is set to OneDrive.

Who said anything about Office 365? I do not have it, and will not have it. I'm just talking about the Onedrive that comes with Windows 11 Pro, that's all I have, no Office 365 or Microsoft 365 installed in this machine.

No Docs/data is stored on the local PC

Every Onedrive installation, whether it's the one that comes with Windows 11 or the one that comes with Office/Microsoft 365, saves files both locally and on the cloud drive, supposedly synced, but Onedrive does a pathetic job with that, unlike iCloud.

Hello,

I hate this feature too. But yes, there's a way to sort this out.

If your OneDrive is still installed now, you can use this set of instruction:

1. Right click on the OneDrive cloud icon on the lower right on your taskbar to go to Settings.
2. Go to Sync and Backup tab > Manage Backup button, turn all these folders off.
3. After you turn off the folders sync in Step 2, now go to Account tab, click on "Unlink this PC"
4. Go to your Windows Settings > Apps, find OneDrive and uninstall it. Restart the computer.

5., You might need to download your files back from www.onedrive.com if your files are not present in your now local folders.

===================

If your OneDrive has already been uninstalled, Please type regedit in the search on the taskbar to launch registry editor, and go to this path, then take a screenshot and share in your reply.

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

I will then show you how to edit it here.

There is a OneDrive inclded with win11 that only has 5Gb space and nothing is stored there unless don by the user then there is OneDrive as a component of o365, the two are completely seperate.

And if that it has nothing to do with win.

It seems that you misunderstood the concept of o365 and probably confused by MS Marketings use of the word “Backup”

OneDrive is not a backup, it’s a cloud location of your data.

The default installation of Office 365 and its OneDrive component uploads all the contents of the PC \My Documents\ folders to OneDrive, (syncs) and there will be a OneDrive folder in File Explorer containing cached copy of all the OneDrive content. And in Word etc the default Save location is set to OneDrive.

No Docs/data is stored on the local PC

You cannot remove OneDrive on a retail O365

If you dont wish to use OneDrive there are numerous settings that need to be changed in each O365 component, but OneDrive will still be the default save location