i've put everything in onedrive by mistake how to return it to computer

Question

i've put everything in onedrive by mistake how to return it to computer

Answer 1

What likely happened is that your Desktop, Documents, or Pictures folders were redirected into OneDrive, so everything appears “in OneDrive” instead of just on your local drive. Your files are still on your computer, but they’re being synced and stored through OneDrive’s folder backup.

To move things back to your computer-only storage, first open OneDrive settings. Right-click the OneDrive cloud icon in the system tray, go to Settings, then find the “Sync and backup” or “Backup” section and choose “Manage backup.” There you’ll see Desktop, Documents, and Pictures if they’re being backed up. Turn off backup for the folders you don’t want in OneDrive. Windows will ask if you want to keep the files locally; confirm that you do.

After that, open File Explorer and go to your OneDrive folder. You’ll see your files still sitting there. Now navigate to “This PC” and open the local versions of Desktop, Documents, or wherever you want them stored. If those folders don’t exist or are empty, you can just recreate or use the default ones under your user folder. Then drag or cut and paste your files from the OneDrive folder back into the local folders.

If your folders still point to OneDrive paths, you can reset them by right-clicking a folder like Documents, choosing Properties, going to the Location tab, and clicking “Restore Default.” Apply the change and allow Windows to move the files.

Once everything is back where you want it, you can optionally unlink OneDrive entirely from your PC in the OneDrive settings under the Account tab by choosing “Unlink this PC,” which stops future syncing.

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hth

Marcin