Mistakenly clicked Restore files on OneDrive - How to abort the process?

Question

Hello,

I have a Folder synced on OneDrive via a link ( using this procedure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avbSqGh9HJk ). This way I can work in my filesystem and have an up-to-date back-up.

I spent quite some time reorganizing it, when this message appeared https://learn.microsoft.com/api/attachments/50710-image.png?platform=QnA , asking if I want to remove or restore >10 000 files. I hit the Restore option thinking it would show me more options to pick a few to restore. But no. It started downloading all of them, messing up the newly established order. How can I stop the downloads? I already emptied the bin at OneDrive website, made sure that none of those (re)moved files remained in filesystem at the website nor in my pc, unlinked and relinked my pc... But the thousands of files are getting downloaded anyway like an unstoppable zombie apocalypse. I paused syncing for now to delay the chaos, but eventually want to have the reorganized version of the Folder synced, without the zombie files.

Finishing the downloads is not an option for me. It's a lot of GB of (re)moved data that I dont want to get back. I'm also worried that the re-downloaded files would overwrite new files created in the meantime (with same names). I'm thinking of moving the current contents of this Folder to another unsynced directory, then delete all OneDrive contents via website and re-sync it all again. Would that work? Is there no simple way to stop the downloads? Any recommendations are welcome.

Best,

Ondrej

Answer 1

If you've accidentally started the restore process in OneDrive and want to stop it, you can try the following steps:

1. Open the OneDrive website in your web browser.
2. Go to the "Recycle bin" section.
3. Find the file or folder that you want to stop restoring and click on it.
4. From the context menu, select "Stop restoring".

Note: This option may not be available if the restore process is already completed or too far along to be stopped. In such cases, you will have to manually delete the restored files after they have been restored.

It's always a good idea to double-check before restoring files or folders in OneDrive to avoid any accidental actions.

Answer 2

Thanks for the tip, Ken.

Well, the option is not available. None of the files is in the bin anymore.

But the procedure I suggested seems to work - it didn't resume restoring the deleted files after I created the link to the emptied Folder. So now I linked the actual files again and need to wait for the >250 GB re-upload. A good sign is that I only see "Uploading" and no "Downloading" now. Hopefully the zombie files are gone for good then :)

Yes, I was thinking twice - the message was just so annoying. What 10 000 files is it talking about? If it's talking about such a massive amount of data it surely won't be just one click to start the flood - they will ask more specifically, right? Hm, I'd rather restore files that I don't need than delete files that I wanna keep, right? ...

No big deal this time, but I'd appreciate if the message a) doesn't even appear or b) at least give me the option to dismiss it, c) give me more information about what's gonna happen after making the choice or d) take me to the bin and make the choice for each file individually.

Answer 3

Hi @Ondrej Vargovčík，

If you have any feedback or suggestion about this behavior, you can try to give a feedback to Microsoft about your requirement:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/send-onedrive-feedback-594f538c-cb25-4079-b1f2-716d91d41bde

Microsoft values your opinion. Your feedback goes directly to our engineers and helps us shape the future of Microsoft products and services for all our users.

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