How can I access my OneDrive files?

Question

I have a OneDrive folder which I have placed on an external harddrive and I want it to be fully accessible even when not connected to the internet. As a student researcher, my OneDrive is large and has many subfolders. I initially tried to download my folder through the OneDrive website however I found that I can only download ~2Gb at one time. I tried disconnecting my OneDrive then re-adding it onto an external hard drive assuming that I could sync it to the external hard drive as a work around to needing to download every folder on my OneDrive then manually reconstructing it.

However when I do this my OneDrive just shows as forever refreshing/syncing. Everything within the folder shows as having a solid green check mark however when I try to open anything it gives me an error that it could not be accessed over the internet.

My hard drive is formatted to be NTFS so I know that is not the issue. Please give me guidance on how to best resolve this issue.

Answer 1

Dear @Connor Hines,

As a moderator, I do not have the tools to investigate your specific account directly because this is a user-to-user support forum. Our role is limited to providing technical support on reported issues, requests, or ideas. However, I will try my best to support you as clearly as possible.

Please note that OneDrive sync is not designed to run reliably from an external drive that may be disconnected from time to time. When the drive is unplugged or unavailable, syncing can become unstable and may lead to frequent errors or incomplete synchronization.

For the most consistent and smooth experience, I strongly recommend keeping your OneDrive sync folder on the internal drive. If storage space is a concern, a practical approach is to sync to the internal drive and disable "Files On‑Demand" so files download locally and sync more quickly and reliably, then copy or move the synced data to your external drive as needed for storage or backup.

If you still prefer to sync directly to an external drive, I can share a set of troubleshooting steps to help reduce the issues you’re seeing. However, please be aware that this setup may still not perform as smoothly, and stable syncing cannot be guaranteed due to the nature of removable storage.

Firstly, please unlink OneDrive once again:

• Go to OneDrive cloud icon > Settings > Account > Unlink this PC.
• Then exit OneDrive completely: right-click OneDrive cloud icon > Quit OneDrive

Next, please go through these step-by-step:

Step 1: Reset OneDrive (rebuild local sync state)

• Try to reset OneDrive: Press Win + R > run %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset
• After resetting, start OneDrive again and let it settle.

Step 2: Re-check the file availability state

• Right-click a problem folder/file > choose Always keep on this device (forces a real download).

Step 3: Confirm you are not hitting sync limits / path-length issues

• Continuous sync can be caused by item count limits, file size limits, invalid characters, or path length, plus low disk space.
• If your research library has very deep subfolders, path length is an issue.

I also found an article for OneDrive's syncing issue, kindly try these steps if the issue persists. Sync your computer's files and folders with OneDrive - Microsoft Support

I hope this full-fill your request, if it does not, please share more detailed information which I could help you efficiently.

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