OneDrive "spontaneously" deletes contents of folder(s(

Question

My OneDrive for Business is acting strangely. I find that every day or so, the contents of one or more folders vanishes (from both my local drive and online). FWIW, my local drive keeps only placeholders, and is not hydrated. Luckily, I have backups, so I can, and do, replace the contents.

I do have OneDrive on a second machine (my notebook), but that machine is usually off, so it's not a syncing problem from there.

What's making my content disappear?

Answer 1

Dear @Kenneth Isaacson,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

Based on your description, your OneDrive folder contents disappear both locally and online.

For better understanding your situation, please confirm some information above:
Have you checked with other users in the company to see if anyone is experiencing a similar issue?

Have you checked whether the OneDrive storage quota is close to being full recently?

Have you verified if anyone else has been granted access or permissions to this OneDrive account/folder?

Have you checked with the IT admin whether there are any company policies (retention, cleanup, security, or OneDrive policies) that could affect file deletion or syncing?

In the meantime, OneDrive should not delete files on its own under normal circumstances.

Try to Turn OFF Storage Sense

Please check if Storage Sense is enabled in your Windows settings. Storage Sense might automatically delete unused files. You can turn it off by following these steps:

Open Settings > Go to System > Storage > Turn off the Storage Sense switch.

Reset OneDrive cache

This repairs Files On‑Demand metadata issues.

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset

Then sign back in and allow re‑sync.

if methods above do not work, please update some questions above so I can understand more your situation and can support you more effectively.

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