THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CLARIFYING THIS! This has been driving me insane ever since I upgraded. This the first video I'm seeing that addresses the problem. As a producer, many of my apps store libraries in "My Documents". So I've got well over 5GBs of stuff there. And since I need access to it at all times in the studio, I can't have it only in the cloud because if I should lose online access I'd be screwed. This is a very annoying feature and it is clearly done intentionally to get people to buy more storage. That's why there is no clear instruction on how to stop it.
This video is solid gold!!! I'm in OneDrive hell right now and may have lost ALL of my documents due to this stupid auto backup. Luckily I can recreate or restore most of what I've lost but it's still a headache. This video needs to be made viral.
Oh man, this was driving me CRAZY! I must've deleted thousands of old emails before I realized that something was screwy with this 'OneDrive' thing taking up soo much of my storage. Thank you for this simple and enlightening video, it helped me so much!
Warning. Got a new Lenova laptop, moved files from old laptop to new, and guess what? One Drive was full! In other words, One Drive will be used without your permission. So be aware. For me who has never heard or familiar with One Drive, these videos by Leo regarding One Drive are invaluable! Thank you!
Great guide. With the way that Windows nags the user to start doing this and with the intentional vagueness, it has effectively become a trap for millions of users who think they have to start paying for a service. While also making file recovery harder in emergencies.
True. It's indeed a trap n what a headache to recover my files, if possible at all. Am still trying to figure out how to recover files from my frozen account.
I disliked it vehemently after the office said use it as where you do work and save. I moved all the relevant files in folders so that location and one drive could sync. When a file that's used rarely needed to be used, I went to the folder to get this file and couldn't find it. Looked in one drive and of course couldn't find it. When I realized one drive was deleting old files and deleting them on my PC as well, I grabbed all the remaining folder and files and kept them out of one drive's reach. The office has administrator control of the PC's at work and probably screwed up the settings making them responsible for the data loss. As a result of that, I keep my personal PC from having any data where one drive could get to it as one drive seems to come back on now and then.
"Heck" is not the word I would use. I only want the cloud to serve as extra storage...but NO, they want to see everything I have and make me pay monthly for my storage. A scam, and invasion of privacy. Thank you.
OMG!! Finally the explanation I needed!! I had barely started using the free one drive and that pesky message "one drive full" came up!! New subscriber here!! Thanks 😊
Leo, you have explained the problem so clearly and simply. I am now going to follow your procedure. I think I will also test and back up each file before deleting from One Drive. I have subscribed.
Agree with previous comment. Great explanation! Makes it easy to hate Microsoft. I think they force things like this, not to help their customers, but just to satisfy their greed. If they wanted to help, they would give clear instructions showing how this feature can be properly used. Give customers a choice and the just might embrace it. If they don’t want it, maybe it’s because the product was developed without consideration for the customers’ requirements in the first place. Xerox learned this lesson the hard way.
ya its about greed but through a property of scale free networks known as preferential attachment. in nature this is a good thing. companies will consolidate wealth, info, and connections to the point of eliminating the small and medium hubs making the man-made scale free networks inefficient and delicate. it is so bad we have people just folding and embracing random networking like block chain based open A.I. how about a healthier connection like connecting to ancient natural hubs which are big cause they got there foot in the door first and you make a deal with them or u don't exist but u are treated better. refrigerated sour Kraut yep reconnect with this ancient bacterial hub and the calcium stays out of your kidney and arteries to go to bones(vit K2) and the little fellas get another mobile home. example 2 the mitochondrion my favorite deal ever. Microsoft is squeezing so hard because they fail to understand the inter-connectedness of all things and the power it brings to ALL. hopefully we all wise up fast enough me included and thanks for letting me blow some steam now back to finding my missing content.
I believe Microsoft, with that vague feature, is making people think "Oh, I have no space left on Onedrive? Then I'll have to pay a subscription!" so they naively do that afterwards. Fu** you, Microsoft! By the way, Google Drive offers 15 GB instead of just 5 GB.
Thank you very much, Leo. Your explanation is so clear. I can now disable the annoying reminder to buy more storage. I don't need more storage as I am retired. I use an external drive for Picture backup.
Thanks so much for this video. I was pulling my hair out with this Windows 11 update trying to figure out how to move files. It's turned off now, this video was really helpful.
Thank you Leo very much for your help. {{Yes}} it's a little more confusing for most of us however you made it easier to understand ~ even though I needed to watch the video twice. I get confused (like perhaps some of the others) as to the "folder names" and where they are. I'm going to try and make put together a diagram or flow-chart that'll help me keep things straight. As a senior I easily get confused but a diagram/flow-chart might help me. Again "thank you so much for your help". 👍
Alright, so I went through the procedure, as instructed. I finally got my files in order, some of which are lost (but retrievable). I ran into a syncing issue so some-things went wrong and I lost some pictures I had previously downloaded from the web. Damn is it just such a headache! I went about my browsing experiencing not knowing this was being pulled from under me...But now that everything is in order. I thank you. I feel calm now that my screen isn't constantly giving me error messages about storage.
I wish I had seen this earlier. I figured all this out with one severe headache. Always used the documents folder as kind of a catch all for misc files that I would eventually go to and sort out later, and man... do I regret that. Said storage was nearly full, so I turned off the sync to documents, images, and desktop, and thought I lost everything when I found the document folder emptied. Finding them was bad enough, but then moving the created onedrive documents folder over to the old (ACTUAL) documents folder took almost 15 minutes lol. Then when that finished I saw I had no desktop icons and had to manually move those over from the created desktop folder to the actual desktop folder as well, which took a whopping 0.5 seconds. Still, for a feature that holds potentially so much of your data, it should really come with some kind of tutorial when using and setting up the service. For anybody who doesn't even know how to navigate a computer that well, this could lead to a very high stress situation, and a headache for the one trying to help them sort it out.
The best way to deal with this problem, BEFORE you put any files on your windows 11 computer, is to go into control panel and UNINSTALL OneDrive. Problem solved.
Many thanks for this clear and concise information. I have been a PC user for my work (mainly Autocad) since the days of Windows 3.11. In my humble opinion, this 'feature' demonstrates the pinnacle of Microsoft's greed and arrogance! I had already worked out how to disable this before stumbling across your channel. I really wish that I had found you, before tearing out my (little remaining) hair! Excellent channel Sir! You have a new subscriber.
GREAT LEO - was forced to shut down cloud - and must figure out what to do and this video gave us GREAT ideals - Just how to retrieve our folders files and pictures - However Thurndbird downloaded our files - how we download the whole desktop and Gmail folders 80,000 folders and - now we shut down the computer for fours days and lost the thunderbird - we are now trying to get the old thunderbird account and having a hard time of this - but trying - we purchased 2 TB bites of storage and we just ran out of space once we turn this over to CLOUD - we now wish we never done this - backup to the cloud should have backup to a system of backup - daily and going to do a complete burn of the hard drive to keep the back up the complete hard drive save - learning each day - but thanks for the vifdeo and where to go from here for more information - Thanks Leo -
Didn't know about this feature and the fact it was set to on. I've been having many issues with with One Drive while managing a growing library of photos. Is the fact it is turned on essentially causing a positive feedback loop? Thanks very much. You have a new subscriber.
Hey Leo - great explanation! Thank you! So I'll stop the backup feature and manually move all of the files back to the User's Document, Picture, Desktop Folders & use my CloudBerry Back-up software / cloud server. However, could you clarify two points for me? 1) I would like to use OneDrive and store selectively files & folders on OneDrive & my PC and keep them sync'd for access across multiple devices - what's the best strategy for that specifically? And secondly, can you remind us of the default User File Folder structure with a Windows 10 machine so I reset, put them back in the proper order? Really, really appreciate it!!! Again, excellent & clear video - finally I understand what happened & why!
I got a new pc with windows 11 and I can't get into the settings of one drive. I hate that my game got saved on one drive cause my documents should not be liked to one drive. I just want a normal desktop saved storage. Why can't it let me know what one drive dose before I had this problem.
Thank you for this explanation. You would think that Microsoft would understand how to keep folder structures intact; and you would think that the software engineers at MS could do basic stuff like make their program understandable - but they don't. I dealt with this issue long before I came across this video; and I was scared to delete anything on my onedrive. I disabled the "app" and emptied the OneDrive folder. I'm using I-Drive backup now.; but after 2+ years of not using OneDrive, I received the same email as everyone else - I am running out of storage. That's because the old stuff is still sitting in their cloud and I can't get to it unless I re-install their app. That's never going to happen. :)
After hours of deleting stuff, I got my son to TURN OFF onedrive for me. What a confusing configuration Microsoft made. It would be nice if it was clear and straightforward. Thank goodness for young computer literate people.
Thank you very much for your time and explanation, which Im sure will be very helpful to a lot of people out there with limited IT knowledge like myself. I genuinely think that Microsoft has turned very GREEDY and their undeniable goal above all now, is to SET people UP to BUY and BUY. Therefore and under my humble point of view, a LEGISLATION should be put in place to prevent Microsoft and others VIOLATING people's PRIVACY and OWNERSHIP of their Machines and Data respectively. Microsoft has NO RIGHT to use and profit from people's lack of IT skills. Im not an IT expert, but I also have noticed that some Microsoft Windows Features will eventually lead the customers in a straight head on collision with a concrete wall, when their machines start having problems. And the only help they get is a referral TO BUY SOLUTIONS either from Microsoft or from other companies. For example my D drive is BLOATNG UP with Windows Image Back Up Files at unbelievable speed, to the point that my D drive has almost run out of space, and it's now in RED. I wonder if somebody could assist here.
Class action lawsuit will do the trick!! The majority of users unknowingly bought a monthly subscription for my space. Most probably wouldn't have if they had the option!
excellent video, but as I unchecked the program, I began downloading the files, but I now have two problems, first, not all files appear and second it does not download subfolders when downloading folders. Do you now of what can be done?
Thank you Leo! My computer One Drive was backing up and I didn’t realize it. Now I have to move it all! So, I’m not quite sure where or how to do backups elsewhere. Do you have a video that explains that more? Thank you so much for you help!,
Good video, just one question, I use one drive on a Samsung s8+ tablet, and the Samsung cloud combined with Microsoft into one drive, it states that I have 15 GB of storage with that combo. Have you ever heard of this? Thanks in advance
Leo, after removing files from one drive and putting them in a separate area of my PC hard drive I went back in to try to turn off the back up on one drive. When I got into the settings and went to the manage folder backup section, only one of the folders had stop backup available as an option. That was my pictures folder. I clicked the stock back up and got the message that you indicated I would get but I persisted and stopped back up that folder no longer has a checkmark in the blue icon in the corner. However the other two folders did not have a stop back up option available. It looks like I may have left some small files in there. But I can’t figure out how to get to the stop option button, so I have the selected both folders. Is that enough to get me out of this terrible feature? I would really appreciate an answer on this. You do an excellent presentation and it is something I really needed. Thank you
I have a question. I turned on OneDrive as soon as I got my new PC. I don't want OneDrive backing up my files anymore, so I have turned that off. Now , what's the best way to get my files in their correct location on my C drive? Just copy everything in the OneDrive folders, and manually paste them into their correct location on my C drive?
New user of freshly installed Win11 and I'm having fits with it. I've tried to install pictures to my Picture folder and it erased them, my videos, and my music. I'm strugeling with it but if It doesn't get resolved I may go back to win10. I hate this. It even erased them off of my back up usb drive.
I moved my documents folder to os(c:) now I can't get my os folder to open did I screw up the paths to certain files? Its not responding ok got in but is it safe to move the es files?
One doesn't buy storage, one is RENTING storage. I say so because one has to pay a fee every month. It is like a renting an apartment. When you do that one has to pay every month. Thank you for this video. I don't know how to recuperate my mental pain, but I am going to change my email accounts to another ones. Because of this problem, I cancelled all my subscriptions on my emails.
I'm currently experiencing issues with OneDrive. Although I freed up space to 1.5 GB out of +5 GB, my OneDrive is still frozen, and I can only access my documents in view-only mode. Could you help me resolve this?
good video and well presented however, the average person is going to have zero idea how to backup their "entire" computer and really there is no need. Just a couple of formatted flash drives and sending the common folder to them is more than enough.
My computer drive is full! I signed onto Live, and I saw my files. My Onedrive has paused and doesn't let me restart again. I tried to upload my files but it can't do it. There's no icon In the notification area! All my files have a BROWN ICON AND CAN'T ACCESS THEM
If your hard drive is full then that's probably why OneDrive can't run. You might see about marking some or all of your onedrive files online only, or freeing up space on your hard drive.
Thank you so much for you Video about One drive. Personally I think Microsoft' ve intended to force users to buy 360 which is very nasty. Amid my frustration you are my savior.By the way Under "One drive Setting" what " Unlink this PC" would do to my files or other well being of my information? Please enlighten me. Thank you with respect Vis
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CLARIFYING THIS! This has been driving me insane ever since I upgraded. This the first video I'm seeing that addresses the problem. I do have another issue though. In the manage folder backup window, the "Documents" folder is in red and there is an error msg telling me that to continue, I have to either move or delete one of the files in the "Documents" folder on my PC. Obviously I don't want to do that. So how do I resolve THIS issue?
@@askleonotenboom Thanks, Leo. That is actually what I eventually did. I do have one more query for you though, if you please... As a creative, many of my apps store huge library files in "Documents" which I need access to at all times. So naturally it's not ideal to have these moved to "Documents" in OneDrive. However, it seems this is unavoidable as each time I open an app with libraries, the syncing resumes immediately, even after applying your instructions. So my question is: Does the option to "Always keep on this devide" make the files available on both your PC and the OneDrive, and will I therefore be able to access "Documents" directly from my PC, even if I have no internet access?
Hi, thanks for the info very nicely explained, but what if you're an IT in a company using Office 365, and you had Roaming profiles on, and on top of that you log on to different computers. I think turning on the BU-feature will mess up things even more ! What happens to your data and how can we recover from that ?
I'm not 100% sure (I'm no expert), but I know when you transfer things to the 1TB onedrive, the original documents remain on your hard drive, but they are copied to the cloud (backed up). So you aren't freeing up space on your Hard drive by merely transferring things to onedrive alone. If you want to free up space on your hard drive now that you transferred things over to the cloud, you have to right click the documents on onedrive and select the option "free up space." This keeps the documents backed up on the cloud (so you don't lose them and can download copies later if you want to) but deletes the original copies on the hard drive, thus freeing up space on the hard drive (and making the hard drive no longer full, if that is what you are wanting to do). There might be an easier way of doing this so you don't have to go through each backed up document, right-clicking, and selecting "free up space," but I haven't figured out how yet (I'm still learning).
thanks i do not like one drive, why does anyone need one drive anyway. i never needed it and it fooled me into grisf of it i thought i needed it for storage but i cant even find how to buy it, i'm sure i could but i feel if i just do as youve shown then get my files back and i wish i knew my password for one drive but i can then just take my recordings that have a lot to them in studio one and just burn them and delete them or only keep what is important, i noticed i had no room just after a few recording with one drive wanting extortion if i want to be stupid about not reserching my field. good video. i will save it for reference, thanks
I do not use OneDrive and it is empty, but I frequently get an email with one of my photos "in OneDrive." When I try to find it in OneDrive it tells me it's not there? How does this happen?
Me again! It looks like I have a camera roll (huge storage) in OneDrive. I'm going to move to a flash drive. I'm only a tiny bit over storage on my one drive, which I believe is not unlinked. Can automatically get my one drive storage back? Once I went over storage, I found I can't use Word on desktop/ or on line & that's killin' me! I hope you see this! Thank you!
@@askleonotenboom Firstly! Thank you so much for answering! And secondly, teeth chattering, I'll make certain once, twice, three times that the Camera Roll that is in OneDrive is on a flash drive...& then delete fr One Drive ... and see if any storage frees up! ! !
PS, How I wish there were microsoft stores still open... when I get to NY (1 or 2x a year), I almost always stop in w/ questions as it's impossible support by phone...Unless I pretend something is wrong with one of my surfaces! (Shhhhhhh! Don't tell!)
I like many Microsoft products and use them daily, but what’s discussed in this video is one the of the reasons I don’t use OneDrive. Most other cloud storages give you one sync folder and leave the rest on your computer alone. If they have a backup feature, you must find it in settings and turn it on manually, which is how it should be. I’ve seen several people with OneDrive white and green check marks on all of their desktop and document folders and files, but they had no idea what the check marks meant or how they got there. What if there’s something that those people don’t want in the cloud in one of the directories that Microsoft decides should be backed up to OneDrive, and in the fog of confusion during setup, the users left the circles checked to back up said directories? OneDrive isn’t zero-knowledge encrypted, so Microsoft can see the raw contents of whatever gets uploaded to their servers (if it’s not encrypted by the user first).
Does onedrive really back up your files, if it's moving them from your hard drive to their one drive? Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but to me "Backing up" would be leaving your original files there and making a copy in their cloud drive.
@@sarahbennet7513 I'm still learning about Onedrive (found out I have 1TB of storage and figured I could start using it to backup my word documents so I have access to them on both PC and laptop). But yes, it appears it copies them to the cloud, but if I want to find the documents, I have to go to the onedrive folder where they are now in the documents section (in this sense, they did move but they are still on the computer). They are still somehow on my computer so I can access them offline, but they have also been copied to the onedrive folder (which puts them in the cloud). Their location just moved from the original pc documents folder to the onedrive folder. It's confusing haha.
is this why i have so many images in my ondrive that i never wanted to save??? i have so many images that are from video games and editing tools like icons and previews saved on my onedrive that i never asked to be saved...why???
I was locked out of sending outlook emails for 10 days, although i use only 20% of my mail plus one drive quota. I found out that in outlook mail there is a well hidden chat function, and the support person told me to just upload a 100 MB file to onedrive, and then refresh the outlook mail page on the web 10 times. It worked, problem resolved. Why MS dont inform about this on their own support pages i cant imagine.
What a wonderfull video. I have been getting so cross trying to find my files. I hate Onedrive. What gives Microsoft the right to alter my PC and not tell me. I managed to change my subscription for 365 back to the original rate. I only have 365 for Publisher work that I do for a Charity. I will use free Office software when I stop the charity work. Microsoft should be refered to the Office of Fair Trading in the UK.
I am having a hell of a time. I was trying to move files over from an old pc. I opted for 365 so have a 1T of cloud space. I ended up with a pretty large folder in my 'Documents' folder. Oh well. But I ended up selecting the Backup feature. It started moving this folder and others into the cloud. Shit... Now I cannot delete the folder.. What a mess.
I followed instructions. Now I have an icon that says ,where are my files? I click on it and I see a red x next to pictures and documents in both one drive and desktop. How do I move from one drive to another folder or file ? And how do I open files with the red x next to them?
OneDrive is a horrible product! I got a message out of the blue that said my OneDrive was full. I could no longer access my e-mail. I did not know what OneDrive was. I started deleting files and now I've lost important data. I want to store files on my computer, not in the cloud, not in OneDrive. For some reason OneDrive is the default folder for saving documents. I didn't realize that. I ended up with multiple documents, same name, but different content. What a damn nightmare!
The 5 GB one drive cloud ... whatever GB amount of files that was put in there can never be decreased even if you move your files on to your own drive. Once I saw little messages telling me I had used 3.5 GB of 5 GB free cloud storage and that I should buy more, I dug into the evilness of the nefarious program. I made copies of all my files, put them on my (D) drive and the used revo uninstaller program (portable version) to completely remove one drive from my pc (11) every last trace of it. I bought a pc with 256 GB (C) drive & 2 TB (D) drive. And then to have this one drive malware loaded in it? No thanks!
This is comprehensive, thank you! And , this is how they trapped me , they made me pay the basic one drive to increase my gigabyte memory in order to maintain my ability to send and receive emails ...I could not send or receive emails, of which I use mostly for sending and receiving documents . And of course thousands of pictures of 50 years plus family history and current family history ...half of which one drive still recognizes and can still view on the cloud , but the other older pictures are from older or altered files which the cloud no longer recognized, therefore non recoverable ....luckily, I have all the pictures in other non cloud locations...what a mess!
How to turn off one drive which i thought i did but now i find out there charging me storage fees!! i never see the little cloud storage syncing emblem in my desktop tray! i turned cloud storage off some time ago its not even in my application settings anymore and also microsoft conveniently doesnt answer phone calls cannot contact them to dispute anything! i should have stayed with windows 8.1 and i am sure you have no real answer for this techno extorsion.
Even though it's not running on your computer you still have cloud storage, and apparently you're using some. Visit onedrive.com to see what files you have uploaded there, and remove them. You can also visit account.microsoft.com to control your subscriptions and payments.
@@askleonotenboom i did! it said i was 65 gb over the 5gb limit i deleted in the heat of the moment everything and it says i have 0 of 5gb memory and i did this months ago also,so i guess i have to keep an eye on this
This to me is MSFT being devious, untruthful and gouging. They don't make enough cash (!) so they have to trick you out of yours. Needs to be outlawed. I have disabled OneDrive and use Dropbox. At least the are honest..
Bonus... why you might have two Documents folders.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CLARIFYING THIS! This has been driving me insane ever since I upgraded. This the first video I'm seeing that addresses the problem. As a producer, many of my apps store libraries in "My Documents". So I've got well over 5GBs of stuff there. And since I need access to it at all times in the studio, I can't have it only in the cloud because if I should lose online access I'd be screwed. This is a very annoying feature and it is clearly done intentionally to get people to buy more storage. That's why there is no clear instruction on how to stop it.
This video is solid gold!!! I'm in OneDrive hell right now and may have lost ALL of my documents due to this stupid auto backup. Luckily I can recreate or restore most of what I've lost but it's still a headache. This video needs to be made viral.
That's great, isn't it, so called backup turns out to be the cause of losing all of one's files :(
Oh man, this was driving me CRAZY! I must've deleted thousands of old emails before I realized that something was screwy with this 'OneDrive' thing taking up soo much of my storage. Thank you for this simple and enlightening video, it helped me so much!
Warning. Got a new Lenova laptop, moved files from old laptop to new, and guess what? One Drive was full! In other words, One Drive will be used without your permission. So be aware. For me who has never heard or familiar with One Drive, these videos by Leo regarding One Drive are invaluable! Thank you!
Great guide. With the way that Windows nags the user to start doing this and with the intentional vagueness, it has effectively become a trap for millions of users who think they have to start paying for a service. While also making file recovery harder in emergencies.
True. It's indeed a trap n what a headache to recover my files, if possible at all. Am still trying to figure out how to recover files from my frozen account.
I disliked it vehemently after the office said use it as where you do work and save. I moved all the relevant files in folders so that location and one drive could sync. When a file that's used rarely needed to be used, I went to the folder to get this file and couldn't find it. Looked in one drive and of course couldn't find it. When I realized one drive was deleting old files and deleting them on my PC as well, I grabbed all the remaining folder and files and kept them out of one drive's reach. The office has administrator control of the PC's at work and probably screwed up the settings making them responsible for the data loss. As a result of that, I keep my personal PC from having any data where one drive could get to it as one drive seems to come back on now and then.
"Heck" is not the word I would use. I only want the cloud to serve as extra storage...but NO, they want to see everything I have and make me pay monthly for my storage. A scam, and invasion of privacy. Thank you.
OMG!! Finally the explanation I needed!! I had barely started using the free one drive and that pesky message "one drive full" came up!! New subscriber here!! Thanks 😊
Excellent explanation. You kept me from jumping out the window. Thanks. I might buy a Mac next time.
as a former mac owner, please don't
Very thorough explanation. Great help Leo ! thanks
Leo, you have explained the problem so clearly and simply. I am now going to follow your procedure. I think I will also test and back up each file before deleting from One Drive. I have subscribed.
Agree with previous comment. Great explanation! Makes it easy to hate Microsoft. I think they force things like this, not to help their customers, but just to satisfy their greed. If they wanted to help, they would give clear instructions showing how this feature can be properly used. Give customers a choice and the just might embrace it. If they don’t want it, maybe it’s because the product was developed without consideration for the customers’ requirements in the first place. Xerox learned this lesson the hard way.
ya its about greed but through a property of scale free networks known as preferential attachment. in nature this is a good thing. companies will consolidate wealth, info, and connections to the point of eliminating the small and medium hubs making the man-made scale free networks inefficient and delicate. it is so bad we have people just folding and embracing random networking like block chain based open A.I. how about a healthier connection like connecting to ancient natural hubs which are big cause they got there foot in the door first and you make a deal with them or u don't exist but u are treated better. refrigerated sour Kraut yep reconnect with this ancient bacterial hub and the calcium stays out of your kidney and arteries to go to bones(vit K2) and the little fellas get another mobile home. example 2 the mitochondrion my favorite deal ever. Microsoft is squeezing so hard because they fail to understand the inter-connectedness of all things and the power it brings to ALL. hopefully we all wise up fast enough me included and thanks for letting me blow some steam now back to finding my missing content.
I believe Microsoft, with that vague feature, is making people think "Oh, I have no space left on Onedrive? Then I'll have to pay a subscription!" so they naively do that afterwards. Fu** you, Microsoft! By the way, Google Drive offers 15 GB instead of just 5 GB.
Oh my God!! Finally answers to my nightmare!! Thank you so much!!
Thank you very much, Leo. Your explanation is so clear. I can now disable the annoying reminder to buy more storage. I don't need more storage as I am retired. I use an external drive for Picture backup.
Thanks so much for this video. I was pulling my hair out with this Windows 11 update trying to figure out how to move files. It's turned off now, this video was really helpful.
Thanks to you I am finally starting to understand one drive. Microsoft is soooo vague.
Beautiful Video Sir. You helped me with this OneDrive confusion. Thank you!
Thank you Leo very much for your help. {{Yes}} it's a little more confusing for most of us however you made it easier to understand ~ even though I needed to watch the video twice. I get confused (like perhaps some of the others) as to the "folder names" and where they are. I'm going to try and make put together a diagram or flow-chart that'll help me keep things straight. As a senior I easily get confused but a diagram/flow-chart might help me. Again "thank you so much for your help". 👍
I have one drive wanting me to subscribe for $3 a month now that it's full.
Thanks for the info. I'll fix it now.
this video saved me from hard resetting my computer thank you so much!!!
Alright, so I went through the procedure, as instructed. I finally got my files in order, some of which are lost (but retrievable). I ran into a syncing issue so some-things went wrong and I lost some pictures I had previously downloaded from the web. Damn is it just such a headache! I went about my browsing experiencing not knowing this was being pulled from under me...But now that everything is in order. I thank you. I feel calm now that my screen isn't constantly giving me error messages about storage.
I wish I had seen this earlier. I figured all this out with one severe headache. Always used the documents folder as kind of a catch all for misc files that I would eventually go to and sort out later, and man... do I regret that. Said storage was nearly full, so I turned off the sync to documents, images, and desktop, and thought I lost everything when I found the document folder emptied. Finding them was bad enough, but then moving the created onedrive documents folder over to the old (ACTUAL) documents folder took almost 15 minutes lol. Then when that finished I saw I had no desktop icons and had to manually move those over from the created desktop folder to the actual desktop folder as well, which took a whopping 0.5 seconds. Still, for a feature that holds potentially so much of your data, it should really come with some kind of tutorial when using and setting up the service. For anybody who doesn't even know how to navigate a computer that well, this could lead to a very high stress situation, and a headache for the one trying to help them sort it out.
Thank you so much, i've spent the last two hours trying to fix this
The best way to deal with this problem, BEFORE you put any files on your windows 11 computer, is to go into control panel and UNINSTALL OneDrive. Problem solved.
does that work for ever or will a update just reinstall it ?
I want to say thank you so much you saved me. I have a family computer (my mother) that had this one drive full problem.
Thank you Leo. You help me a lot
I am a retired IT prof, and sometimes I long back to the good ole’ days of Windows NT. Soooo simple.
VERY helpful. Thank you very much Leo!
Many thanks for this clear and concise information.
I have been a PC user for my work (mainly Autocad) since the days of Windows 3.11.
In my humble opinion, this 'feature' demonstrates the pinnacle of Microsoft's greed and arrogance!
I had already worked out how to disable this before stumbling across your channel. I really wish that I had found you, before tearing out my (little remaining) hair!
Excellent channel Sir!
You have a new subscriber.
Thank you from the UK
OMG Leo you are a God to MS's evil.
GREAT LEO - was forced to shut down cloud - and must figure out what to do and this video gave us GREAT ideals - Just how to retrieve our folders files and pictures - However Thurndbird downloaded our files - how we download the whole desktop and Gmail folders 80,000 folders and - now we shut down the computer for fours days and lost the thunderbird - we are now trying to get the old thunderbird account and having a hard time of this - but trying - we purchased 2 TB bites of storage and we just ran out of space once we turn this over to CLOUD - we now wish we never done this - backup to the cloud should have backup to a system of backup - daily and going to do a complete burn of the hard drive to keep the back up the complete hard drive save - learning each day - but thanks for the vifdeo and where to go from here for more information - Thanks Leo -
I just found this video. Thanks so much! I was totally confused and this helps a lot.
Not techy by any means but I did understand MOST of it. Thanks. JimE
Didn't know about this feature and the fact it was set to on. I've been having many issues with with One Drive while managing a growing library of photos. Is the fact it is turned on essentially causing a positive feedback loop? Thanks very much. You have a new subscriber.
Hey Leo - great explanation! Thank you! So I'll stop the backup feature and manually move all of the files back to the User's Document, Picture, Desktop Folders & use my CloudBerry Back-up software / cloud server. However, could you clarify two points for me? 1) I would like to use OneDrive and store selectively files & folders on OneDrive & my PC and keep them sync'd for access across multiple devices - what's the best strategy for that specifically? And secondly, can you remind us of the default User File Folder structure with a Windows 10 machine so I reset, put them back in the proper order? Really, really appreciate it!!! Again, excellent & clear video - finally I understand what happened & why!
Thank you leo, ur a life saver !
THANK YOU SIR. YOUR VIDEO HELPED ME A LOT.
I got a new pc with windows 11 and I can't get into the settings of one drive. I hate that my game got saved on one drive cause my documents should not be liked to one drive. I just want a normal desktop saved storage. Why can't it let me know what one drive dose before I had this problem.
Thank you for this explanation. You would think that Microsoft would understand how to keep folder structures intact; and you would think that the software engineers at MS could do basic stuff like make their program understandable - but they don't. I dealt with this issue long before I came across this video; and I was scared to delete anything on my onedrive. I disabled the "app" and emptied the OneDrive folder. I'm using I-Drive backup now.; but after 2+ years of not using OneDrive, I received the same email as everyone else - I am running out of storage. That's because the old stuff is still sitting in their cloud and I can't get to it unless I re-install their app. That's never going to happen. :)
You don't need to reinstall the app. Just visit onedrive.com and your files will be there for you to do with as you please.
@@askleonotenboom Thank you. I’m in.
👍👍👍😊Excellent & helpful tips & explanations. Thank you, LEO.
very helpful, my generation is supposed to be good at this, yet i needed this so thanks
After hours of deleting stuff, I got my son to TURN OFF onedrive for me. What a confusing configuration Microsoft made. It would be nice if it was clear and straightforward. Thank goodness for young computer literate people.
Thank you that helps me a lot, but I don't know how to move the budget pictures from the onedrive to the computer.
Thank you very much for your time and explanation, which Im sure will be very helpful to a lot of people out there with limited IT knowledge like myself. I genuinely think that Microsoft has turned very GREEDY and their undeniable goal above all now, is to SET people UP to BUY and BUY. Therefore and under my humble point of view, a LEGISLATION should be put in place to prevent Microsoft and others VIOLATING people's PRIVACY and OWNERSHIP of their Machines and Data respectively. Microsoft has NO RIGHT to use and profit from people's lack of IT skills. Im not an IT expert, but I also have noticed that some Microsoft Windows Features will eventually lead the customers in a straight head on collision with a concrete wall, when their machines start having problems. And the only help they get is a referral TO BUY SOLUTIONS either from Microsoft or from other companies. For example my D drive is BLOATNG UP with Windows Image Back Up Files at unbelievable speed, to the point that my D drive has almost run out of space, and it's now in RED. I wonder if somebody could assist here.
Class action lawsuit will do the trick!! The majority of users unknowingly bought a monthly subscription for my space. Most probably wouldn't have if they had the option!
I didn't get how to turn on the feature at 3:00 - I don't see the cloud icon in the notification tray!
excellent video, but as I unchecked the program, I began downloading the files, but I now have two problems, first, not all files appear and second it does not download subfolders when downloading folders. Do you now of what can be done?
Great video, my one drive is full to 5.8GB and now windows is not letting me use the hot mail account what to do now?
Thank you Leo! My computer One Drive was backing up and I didn’t realize it. Now I have to move it all! So, I’m not quite sure where or how to do backups elsewhere. Do you have a video that explains that more? Thank you so much for you help!,
There are many articles out on askleo.com that discuss backing up. I'd start you with this one: askleo.com/how-to-back-up-windows-10/
Good video, just one question, I use one drive on a Samsung s8+ tablet, and the Samsung cloud combined with Microsoft into one drive, it states that I have 15 GB of storage with that combo. Have you ever heard of this? Thanks in advance
Hey.. Leo.. Tell me what you know about Terabox... About it's reliability... Safety.. Data safety.. Reply ASAP.
Leo, after removing files from one drive and putting them in a separate area of my PC hard drive I went back in to try to turn off the back up on one drive. When I got into the settings and went to the manage folder backup section, only one of the folders had stop backup available as an option. That was my pictures folder. I clicked the stock back up and got the message that you indicated I would get but I persisted and stopped back up that folder no longer has a checkmark in the blue icon in the corner. However the other two folders did not have a stop back up option available. It looks like I may have left some small files in there. But I can’t figure out how to get to the stop option button, so I have the selected both folders. Is that enough to get me out of this terrible feature? I would really appreciate an answer on this. You do an excellent presentation and it is something I really needed. Thank you
This is amazing advice. Thank you very very very much.
I have a question. I turned on OneDrive as soon as I got my new PC. I don't want OneDrive backing up my files anymore, so I have turned that off. Now , what's the best way to get my files in their correct location on my C drive? Just copy everything in the OneDrive folders, and manually paste them into their correct location on my C drive?
In general, yes.
This has to be the daftest set up that a human could devise. Thanks for trying to explain it.
THANK YOU SO DARN MUCH.
New user of freshly installed Win11 and I'm having fits with it. I've tried to install pictures to my Picture folder and it erased them, my videos, and my music. I'm strugeling with it but if It doesn't get resolved I may go back to win10. I hate this. It even erased them off of my back up usb drive.
I moved my documents folder to os(c:) now I can't get my os folder to open did I screw up the paths to certain files? Its not responding ok got in but is it safe to move the es files?
One doesn't buy storage, one is RENTING storage. I say so because one has to pay a fee every month. It is like a renting an apartment. When you do that one has to pay every month. Thank you for this video. I don't know how to recuperate my mental pain, but I am going to change my email accounts to another ones. Because of this problem, I cancelled all my subscriptions on my emails.
i have windows 10 and did what you said and my files are gone, cannot find them
Every Win10/11 user should be required to watch this video and MS should be sued for OneDrive
I'm currently experiencing issues with OneDrive. Although I freed up space to 1.5 GB out of +5 GB, my OneDrive is still frozen, and I can only access my documents in view-only mode. Could you help me resolve this?
good video and well presented however, the average person is going to have zero idea how to backup their "entire" computer and really there is no need. Just a couple of formatted flash drives and sending the common folder to them is more than enough.
My computer drive is full! I signed onto Live, and I saw my files. My Onedrive has paused and doesn't let me restart again. I tried to upload my files but it can't do it. There's no icon In the notification area! All my files have a BROWN ICON AND CAN'T ACCESS THEM
If your hard drive is full then that's probably why OneDrive can't run. You might see about marking some or all of your onedrive files online only, or freeing up space on your hard drive.
Under rated video 👍
Thank you so much for you Video about One drive. Personally I think Microsoft' ve intended to force users to buy 360 which is very nasty. Amid my frustration you are my savior.By the way Under "One drive Setting" what " Unlink this PC" would do to my files or other well being of my information? Please enlighten me.
Thank you with respect
Vis
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CLARIFYING THIS! This has been driving me insane ever since I upgraded. This the first video I'm seeing that addresses the problem.
I do have another issue though. In the manage folder backup window, the "Documents" folder is in red and there is an error msg telling me that to continue, I have to either move or delete one of the files in the "Documents" folder on my PC. Obviously I don't want to do that. So how do I resolve THIS issue?
I would move it somewhere else and see if the error goes away. Then, move it back to where you want it.
@@askleonotenboom Thanks, Leo. That is actually what I eventually did. I do have one more query for you though, if you please...
As a creative, many of my apps store huge library files in "Documents" which I need access to at all times. So naturally it's not ideal to have these moved to "Documents" in OneDrive. However, it seems this is unavoidable as each time I open an app with libraries, the syncing resumes immediately, even after applying your instructions.
So my question is: Does the option to "Always keep on this devide" make the files available on both your PC and the OneDrive, and will I therefore be able to access "Documents" directly from my PC, even if I have no internet access?
@@mgmthegrand Always keep on this device means the file within OneDrive is on your PC and no connection is required to access it.
@@askleonotenboom Thanks again.
@@askleonotenboom but where on the computer ???????????????????????????????????????????
Hi, thanks for the info very nicely explained, but what if you're an IT in a company using Office 365, and you had Roaming profiles on, and on top of that you log on to different computers. I think turning on the BU-feature will mess up things even more ! What happens to your data and how can we recover from that ?
Thanks
I have the oppisite problem. My HHD is full even though I transfered everything to my 1 TB one drive. What's going on?
I'm not 100% sure (I'm no expert), but I know when you transfer things to the 1TB onedrive, the original documents remain on your hard drive, but they are copied to the cloud (backed up). So you aren't freeing up space on your Hard drive by merely transferring things to onedrive alone. If you want to free up space on your hard drive now that you transferred things over to the cloud, you have to right click the documents on onedrive and select the option "free up space." This keeps the documents backed up on the cloud (so you don't lose them and can download copies later if you want to) but deletes the original copies on the hard drive, thus freeing up space on the hard drive (and making the hard drive no longer full, if that is what you are wanting to do). There might be an easier way of doing this so you don't have to go through each backed up document, right-clicking, and selecting "free up space," but I haven't figured out how yet (I'm still learning).
thanks i do not like one drive, why does anyone need one drive anyway. i never needed it and it fooled me into grisf of it i thought i needed it for storage but i cant even find how to buy it, i'm sure i could but i feel if i just do as youve shown then get my files back and i wish i knew my password for one drive but i can then just take my recordings that have a lot to them in studio one and just burn them and delete them or only keep what is important, i noticed i had no room just after a few recording with one drive wanting extortion if i want to be stupid about not reserching my field. good video. i will save it for reference, thanks
Hello. One question...
What's the best way to back my documents without using OneDrive?
Thanks.
External hard drive, usually. More here: askleo.com/how_do_i_backup_my_computer/
If I'm getting this message in my pictures and I delete some will I now have more space?
If the pictures are in OneDrive, then yes. Everything in your OneDrive counts.
I do not use OneDrive and it is empty, but I frequently get an email with one of my photos "in OneDrive." When I try to find it in OneDrive it tells me it's not there? How does this happen?
Sounds more like a phishing email. If you have no photos in OneDrive I'd ignore the mail.
Thank you sir! Why do I need a more complicated ....NO..
Me again! It looks like I have a camera roll (huge storage) in OneDrive. I'm going to move to a flash drive. I'm only a tiny bit over storage on my one drive, which I believe is not unlinked. Can automatically get my one drive storage back? Once I went over storage, I found I can't use Word on desktop/ or on line & that's killin' me! I hope you see this! Thank you!
As long as you (backup and) delete files from OneDrive, and then make sure to empty the trash, you should get the space back.
@@askleonotenboom Firstly! Thank you so much for answering! And secondly, teeth chattering, I'll make certain once, twice, three times that the Camera Roll that is in OneDrive is on a flash drive...& then delete fr One Drive ... and see if any storage frees up! ! !
PS, How I wish there were microsoft stores still open... when I get to NY (1 or 2x a year), I almost always stop in w/ questions as it's impossible support by phone...Unless I pretend something is wrong with one of my surfaces! (Shhhhhhh! Don't tell!)
I like many Microsoft products and use them daily, but what’s discussed in this video is one the of the reasons I don’t use OneDrive. Most other cloud storages give you one sync folder and leave the rest on your computer alone. If they have a backup feature, you must find it in settings and turn it on manually, which is how it should be. I’ve seen several people with OneDrive white and green check marks on all of their desktop and document folders and files, but they had no idea what the check marks meant or how they got there. What if there’s something that those people don’t want in the cloud in one of the directories that Microsoft decides should be backed up to OneDrive, and in the fog of confusion during setup, the users left the circles checked to back up said directories? OneDrive isn’t zero-knowledge encrypted, so Microsoft can see the raw contents of whatever gets uploaded to their servers (if it’s not encrypted by the user first).
Does onedrive really back up your files, if it's moving them from your hard drive to their one drive? Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but to me "Backing up" would be leaving your original files there and making a copy in their cloud drive.
It copies them to the cloud, not move.
@@askleonotenboom thank you! I’m still going to take your suggestion and not use it 😁
@@sarahbennet7513 I'm still learning about Onedrive (found out I have 1TB of storage and figured I could start using it to backup my word documents so I have access to them on both PC and laptop). But yes, it appears it copies them to the cloud, but if I want to find the documents, I have to go to the onedrive folder where they are now in the documents section (in this sense, they did move but they are still on the computer). They are still somehow on my computer so I can access them offline, but they have also been copied to the onedrive folder (which puts them in the cloud). Their location just moved from the original pc documents folder to the onedrive folder. It's confusing haha.
@@TheLuhya it does sound confusing. But maybe I’ll try it with a few files. Thank you for that info and hints! 😁
is this why i have so many images in my ondrive that i never wanted to save??? i have so many images that are from video games and editing tools like icons and previews saved on my onedrive that i never asked to be saved...why???
thanks for the detail explanation. well one drive SUCKS!
now I need all that it took back.
I was locked out of sending outlook emails for 10 days, although i use only 20% of my mail plus one drive quota. I found out that in outlook mail there is a well hidden chat function, and the support person told me to just upload a 100 MB file to onedrive, and then refresh the outlook mail page on the web 10 times. It worked, problem resolved. Why MS dont inform about this on their own support pages i cant imagine.
What a wonderfull video. I have been getting so cross trying to find my files. I hate Onedrive. What gives Microsoft the right to alter my PC and not tell me. I managed to change my subscription for 365 back to the original rate. I only have 365 for Publisher work that I do for a Charity. I will use free Office software when I stop the charity work. Microsoft should be refered to the Office of Fair Trading in the UK.
That’s one drive they do 😂😂
I am having a hell of a time. I was trying to move files over from an old pc. I opted for 365 so have a 1T of cloud space. I ended up with a pretty large folder in my 'Documents' folder. Oh well. But I ended up selecting the Backup feature. It started moving this folder and others into the cloud. Shit... Now I cannot delete the folder.. What a mess.
I followed instructions. Now I have an icon that says ,where are my files? I click on it and I see a red x next to pictures and documents in both one drive and desktop. How do I move from one drive to another folder or file ? And how do I open files with the red x next to them?
OneDrive is a horrible product! I got a message out of the blue that said my OneDrive was full. I could no longer access my e-mail. I did not know what OneDrive was. I started deleting files and now I've lost important data. I want to store files on my computer, not in the cloud, not in OneDrive. For some reason OneDrive is the default folder for saving documents. I didn't realize that. I ended up with multiple documents, same name, but different content. What a damn nightmare!
The 5 GB one drive cloud ... whatever GB amount of files that was put in there can never be decreased even if you move your files on to your own drive. Once I saw little messages telling me I had used 3.5 GB of 5 GB free cloud storage and that I should buy more, I dug into the evilness of the nefarious program. I made copies of all my files, put them on my (D) drive and the used revo uninstaller program (portable version) to completely remove one drive from my pc (11) every last trace of it. I bought a pc with 256 GB (C) drive & 2 TB (D) drive. And then to have this one drive malware loaded in it? No thanks!
fantastiic video!
This is comprehensive, thank you! And , this is how they trapped me , they made me pay the basic one drive to increase my gigabyte memory in order to maintain my ability to send and receive emails ...I could not send or receive emails, of which I use mostly for sending and receiving documents . And of course thousands of pictures of 50 years plus family history and current family history ...half of which one drive still recognizes and can still view on the cloud , but the other older pictures are from older or altered files which the cloud no longer recognized, therefore non recoverable ....luckily, I have all the pictures in other non cloud locations...what a mess!
You sound like my IT teacher from Capella.
A big PIA. Should have deleted it from the beginning.
THANKS BRO APRECIATE IT , I LOST ALL MY VIDEO AND PICTURES DUE TO ONE DRIVE
If I wanted to pay Microsoft for stealing and storing my files I wouldn't have paid for a larger hard drive when I bought the device 😂
Thank you so much. I work in IT, but this crap still made 0 sense to me. Man One Drive you suck.
Thanks, your video was informative. However, I may not be smart enough to manager this.
How to turn off one drive which i thought i did but now i find out there charging me storage fees!! i never see the little cloud storage syncing emblem in my desktop tray! i turned cloud storage off some time ago its not even in my application settings anymore and also microsoft conveniently doesnt answer phone calls cannot contact them to dispute anything! i should have stayed with windows 8.1 and i am sure you have no real answer for this techno extorsion.
Even though it's not running on your computer you still have cloud storage, and apparently you're using some. Visit onedrive.com to see what files you have uploaded there, and remove them. You can also visit account.microsoft.com to control your subscriptions and payments.
@@askleonotenboom i did! it said i was 65 gb over the 5gb limit i deleted in the heat of the moment everything and it says i have 0 of 5gb memory and i did this months ago also,so i guess i have to keep an eye on this
I wonder why Microsoft thinks that generating mistrust and loathing for their brand is good marketing.
This to me is MSFT being devious, untruthful and gouging. They don't make enough cash (!) so they have to trick you out of yours. Needs to be outlawed. I have disabled OneDrive and use Dropbox. At least the are honest..
Onedrive will download without asking and it's a nightmare.
I don't want or need cloud storage and I really don't want to pay for an invasion of privacy
Trapped. What a hassle, trying to recover my files from the frozen onedrive account, one piece at a time, ouch, my eyes strained so much.