Onedrive remapped my folder structure. Please revert

Question

I foolishly accepted the offer to back up my 'Documents' to OneDrive.

Well guess what? the actual path to my files was changed without asking me:

(WAS) C:\Users\xxx\Documents\subfolder\file.xml

(NOW) C:\Users\xxx*OneDrive*\Documents\subfolder\file.xml

This of course does not work for me as I have source code that can no longer be found using the full file path.

And Windows is trying really hard to not allow me to see the actual file. Even though I can inspect the actual physical path of the file, Windows Explorer makes it looks like the "Onedrive" is not reall there.

Turning off Onedrive sync does undo this and revert back the original file strcuture.

How do I undo "Turn On Windows Backup" such that the local file structure is as it was before?

Microsoft, please stop walking into my living room and rearranging my furniture.

Answer 1

Hi. I'm Brian and I'll try to help.

You should be able to open the OneDrive settings on your PC, select the Backup tab and uncheck the folders you don't want to back up to OneDrive. Restart Windows and those folders should get moved back to their normal places. If that doesn't work, come back because you can change the registry to move them back if needed.

Answer 2

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your reply and advice.

I'm trying to help someone who has succumbed to exactly the same issue. The Cloud Backup process, once started, has completely messed up their local Outlook PST file(s) mapping, local password safe storage, their external drive backup, and various other things dependent upon previously 'defined paths'.

Your solution of deselecting the folders (i.e. Desktop, Documents, etc) and restarting the PC has not remapped the folders back, nor has it actually stopped the OneDrive syncing which seems to continue on unhindered.

The most annoying thing is that there doesn't seem to be a way to undo this simply, and without fearing that some files have moved to the Cloud and no longer be retained locally, etc (i.e. data loss).

Furthermore, there was no prior or useful warning of potential side-effects that this kind of thing would happen when this person thought it would be a good idea to have Cloud Backup ...

Not impressed with this 'destructive change' (though obviously acknowledge you didn't implement it, just thought the above might help finetune your advice, or lead in another direction? MS really needs to think this stuff through better).

Regards,
JC.