esktop.

Question

Why did OneDrive moved all the documents, videos, audios, pics (and folders) that were organized in folders on my desktop and randomly put them all over the desktop. I think these might be duplicates of what was in the folders but how do I stop this? I have hundreds of unorganized documents randomly placed all over my desktop and then also stacked in the upper right hand corner where I can't even see them. Also, OneDrive has been in uploading mode for hours and it's keeping my desktop mostly frozen so I can't reorganize my work or personal items.

Answer 1

Hello

I am Abdal and I would be glad to help you with your question.

It sounds like your OneDrive settings may have been changed, causing it to sync all the files to your desktop instead of keeping them in their original folders. This can be frustrating, especially if you have a lot of files to sort through.

To stop this behavior, you can adjust your OneDrive settings by following these steps:

Right-click the OneDrive icon in your system tray (usually located in the lower right-hand corner of your screen). Click on "Settings" and then select the "Account" tab. Click "Choose folders" and then uncheck the boxes next to any folders that you don't want to sync to your desktop. Click "OK" to save your changes.

Once you have adjusted your OneDrive settings, the files should stop syncing to your desktop and should remain in their original folders. You can then manually move any files that were duplicated to their appropriate folders.

If OneDrive is still in uploading mode and causing your desktop to freeze, you can try pausing the upload temporarily by right-clicking the OneDrive icon in your system tray and selecting "Pause syncing". This should free up your computer's resources so you can reorganize your files.

I hope this information helps.

Regards,

Abdal

Answer 2

This happens to me from time to time. The files and icons are bunched up on top of one another and pop down from the corner when you start organizing them. Somehow OneDrive does not recognize the files as being the same files. Perhaps they are older versions of files that have not been syncing.

If you have older versions of files, remove them from OneDrive or put the older versions into a separate folder in OneDrive.

Answer 3

Thank you again for your time and concern.

The problem is OneDrive didn't drop just several documents and duplicates randomly all over my my desktop, it dropped 100s of them. I need a process or a program that can show me duplicates in mass or I am in for several days of comparing and deleting files.

If anyone has used a program that finds or speeds up the process of finding duplicate documents, photos, audios, etc., please advise! I am presently looking at purchasing PassFab.

Note: I also need to find out what caused OneDrive to take documents that I had organized into files and scatter them on my Desktop in no order or it could just happen again! Unfortunately, Microsoft ONLY supports OneDrive through a VERY slow email process. The people I contacted at Microsoft Support wasted hours of my time AND reinstalled OneDrive creating an even more voluminous mess.

Answer 4

Hello

To determine if the files on your desktop are duplicates, you can compare the timestamps of the files on your desktop with the timestamps of the files in their original folders on OneDrive. If the timestamps match, then the files on your desktop are likely duplicates of the files in their original folders.

To compare the timestamps, follow these steps:

Open OneDrive and navigate to the folder that contains the files that were moved to your desktop. Right-click on a file and select "Properties." Note the "Date created" and "Date modified" timestamps. Navigate to your desktop and find the corresponding file. Right-click on the file and select "Properties." Compare the "Date created" and "Date modified" timestamps with those of the original file on OneDrive.

If the timestamps match, the file is likely a duplicate. You can then safely delete the duplicate file from your desktop.

If you are unsure about whether a file is a duplicate, you can also open the file to compare its contents with the original file on OneDrive. If the contents match, then the file on your desktop is a duplicate.

I hope this helps!

Regards,

Abdal

Answer 5

Thank you for responding and I am not sure I understand.

It has finally stopped because now I have 100's of documents that were organized in files all over my desk top and even stacked in the corner of the desktop. Is there any way to tell if these are duplicates of what was in my files or if these were moved from my files onto my desktop? If these are duplicates and I can tell by the timestamp then I can just delete them.

Is there a way to tell if these were just downloaded from my OneDrive onto my Desktop and are duplicates of the documents that were in my files?