Forum Discussion
Thousands of pictures have disappeared after I removed sync!!! Where are they?
All my pictures files have disappeared that were in my picture folder in Windows -- This PC -- Pictures. i have dozens of sub folders which all should contain photos but there are none there. zero. T...
Mike Williams with the help of microsoft tech support I found that deleting the local drive C:onedrive was the culprit. I restored the thumbnail from my PC recycle bin and all the photos reappeared. It took 2 hours. I am not sure how MYPC/pictures is linked to C: Onedrive. I deleted the latter because I was told if I want to make sure onedrive did no backups from my PC, I had to delete the local onedrive version as well. Microsoft support says I can go ahead and delete it through regedit but I am afraid the files will disappear again. What exactly is the connection between the directory MyPC/Pictures and C:Onedrive. How are they interconnected? why does deleting the latter remove the contents of the former?
" deleting the local drive C:onedrive " is going to delete the files inside. You need to check folder contents before deleting!
"What exactly is the connection between the directory MyPC/Pictures and C:Onedrive. How are they interconnected? why does deleting the latter remove the contents of the former?"
In Win11, look at OneDrive Settings > Sync and Backup > Backup import PC folders to OneDrive
There's a similar interface in earlier versions of Windows. This feature/behaviour has been around for a n umber of years. Key folders are redirected from local user profile on disk to OneDrive subfolders. Basically a version of user-profile roaming using OneDrive rather than local servers.
Plus, backup your files. Cloud-synced files are not backups. Every second post here is someone deleting their OneDrive files or forgetting to pay for cloud storage, and losing stuff.