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Jim77's avatar
Jim77
Copper Contributor
Aug 03, 2025

Unable to access Onedrive or even ICloud Drive on my laptop. Internet access fine.

Hello,     I keep a lot of my information for business on Onedrive and personal on the Icloud drives installed on my HP laptop.  The information is kept in organised in folders and subfolders.  Yeste...
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Surya_Narayana's avatar
Surya_Narayana
MCT
Aug 10, 2025

hi Jim77​ check below troubleshooting steps, may help 

Check if the services are actually signed in and running

  • OneDrive:
    • Look in the system tray (bottom-right). There should be a cloud icon.
      • If it’s greyed out or shows a red cross, sign in again.
      • If you don’t see it, press Windows + S → type OneDrive → open it.
  • iCloud:
    • In the tray, look for the iCloud icon (blue cloud). If not present, open iCloud for Windows from Start menu and sign in again.

Test if you can access them outside File Explorer

  • OneDrive: Go to https://onedrive.live.com and see if you can access files.
  • iCloud Drive: Go to https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive and try there.
    If these work fine online, the issue is more likely the Windows sync client / Explorer integration.

Restart the sync clients

Sometimes the desktop apps just hang.

  • OneDrive:
    • Right-click the OneDrive icon in the tray → Close OneDrive.
    • Press Windows + R, type:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe

and hit Enter to restart it.

  • iCloud:
    • Right-click the iCloud icon → Sign Out, then sign back in.
    • Or press Ctrl + Shift + Esc, find iCloud Drive processes, end them, then restart iCloud from Start menu.

Clear the File Explorer cache

If Explorer freezes when opening cloud folders, the cache or the shell extension could be corrupted.

  • Press Windows + R, type:

nginx

control folders

→ View tab → tick Always show icons, never thumbnails, then click OK.

  • Try again to open the folder.

 

Temporarily disable "Files On-Demand"

Sometimes the issue is with placeholder files that need downloading.

  • OneDrive: Right-click OneDrive icon → Settings → Settings tab → Untick Save space and download files as you use them.
  • iCloud: In iCloud settings, untick Optimize Mac Storage / "Only keep recent files" equivalents in Windows.

Run a quick repair

  • OneDrive repair:
    • Open Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Microsoft OneDrive → Advanced options → click Repair.
  • iCloud repair:
    • Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Apple iCloud → Modify → choose Repair.

If still stuck, reset OneDrive completely

  • Warning: This will re-sync everything, so large files may take time.
  • Press Windows + R, paste:

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

Press Enter, wait ~1 minute, then restart OneDrive.

Why both could fail at once

If this happened to both services yesterday:

  • A recent Windows update may have broken Explorer’s cloud integration.
  • A third-party antivirus / firewall update could be blocking them.
  • A corrupted Explorer shell extension could be freezing when accessing online folders.