Restore files after unlinking from onedrive

Question

Edit. It appears that Onedrive kindly removed itself from the filetree on windows explorer without transfering the files to my user accounts documents, picuture etc. folders. I have managed to transfer the files from the hidden folders.

The issue I have now is that I cannot seem to add my documents or pictures to the quick assess in windows explorer.

I will be leaving the institution that my onedrive account is linked to, I do not want onedrive on my pc.

I set all files to be available offline,

• made sure there was a green check beside all files,
• turned off syncing on all folders, checked that all folders were still there,
• downloaded a zip of all my files onto an external drive,
• then unlinked from the onedrive account.

The result: all files linked to onedrive (available offline) are gone,

• my documents and pictures folders are also gone (along with their contents).
• The zip I downloaded says it is empty when I try to extract it (same when I tried again with a smaller folder).

1. How do I restore or create normal documents and picture folders?
2. Is there an easy way to restore the files, they were available offline, so I don't know why or how they were deleted (I also don't see them in the trash.
3. How do I ensure that onedrive is completely removed from my computer, I simply cannot afford to have it hold my files hostage like this.

Answer 1

Hello Cr,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community! This is incredibly frustrating, and I truly understand how upsetting it must be to lose access to your files after carefully preparing to leave your institution and unlink OneDrive. Even though you set all files to be available offline and saw the green checkmarks, OneDrive’s sync behavior can be misleading. Files marked as “available offline” are still tied to the cloud, and when you unlink or disable syncing, those files may be removed from your local system if they weren’t fully downloaded or cached properly.

The issue with the ZIP file showing as empty is also common when OneDrive’s download process fails silently or when the ZIP is corrupted due to sync interruptions. Unfortunately, if the files were never fully downloaded or were deleted during the unlinking process, they may not be recoverable from your PC or even the Recycle Bin.

You can check OneDrive Online Go to OneDrive.com and sign in with your account. Look in the Recycle Bin and Personal Vault (if used) to see if any files are recoverable. you can also do fully remove OneDrive, Uninstall OneDrive via Settings → Apps → Installed Apps then delete leftover folders

Example

C:\Users[YourUsername]\OneDrive

C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive

Feel free to reply for better understanding.

Warm regards,

JayMark

Answer 2

Hi, I'm Rodrigo and I will help you.

When you unlink and/or disable the OneDrive backup, it restores the default path for the user folders but does not move the files.
Check for your files on the local OneDrive folder at C:\Users(Your Username)\OneDrive. You can move your files from this folder to your user folder.

Answer 3

To create a backup on a separate drive without linking to the old OneDrive folder location, create a new, empty folder named "OneDrive" on the drive, and then link OneDrive to that new folder. Do this without enabling folder backup at Manage Backup, if possible, because you want to download a copy of your files from the cloud and not wanting to sync them to your computer.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/back-up-your-folders-with-onedrive-d61a7930-a6fb-4b95-b28a-6552e77c3057

Then, to obtain local copies of all your OneDrive cloud files, navigate to OneDrive settings > Sync and Backup > Advanced settings > Download all files.