Forum Discussion
Have I lost my files to OneDrive?
Hi friendly forum! I recently purchased and set up a new laptop with Windows 11. I assume it defaulted to the OneDrive settings. When I copied my files/data (30GB) from an external drive onto my computer, OneDrive promptly began giving me error messages (not enouhg storage space?) and selling me additional storage. I am on the free account with 5GB of free storage and don't wish to purchase more. I want to retain my files on my local hard drive, and use OneDrive for maybe a few select folders.
My issue is that now I have tons of files in OneDrive using up the whole 5GB and much more. I deleted these files from OneDrive but I get a message saying that the files will be deleted from all my devices! Does that mean that it will delete them from my local hard drive as well???? It says I have 30 days to recover them from the OneDrive trash.
I don't get it. I don't understand the mess I am in. I can't delete everything and start from scratch because I have since added more files to the computer that are not yet backed up and I would not know which these are.
How do I make sure all my files are on my computer before I wipe OneDrive clean?
Many thanks for any words of wisdom. New at Windows and this is driving me crazy!
1 Reply
Hi DavidWilson,
Don’t worry, I don't think you haven’t lost your files. The problem is that Windows 11 likes to turn on OneDrive by default, so when you copied your 30GB of files, it tried to sync them all to the cloud. Since the free OneDrive account only gives you 5GB, it quickly ran out of space.
Here are some steps to make sure your files stay safe on your computer:
- Check local copies
- Open File Explorer. On the left, look for “This PC” and then your hard drive (usually C: drive).
- Make a new folder there, for example C:\MyFiles.
- Copy some files from OneDrive into that folder. Right-click a file, choose Copy, then paste it into your new folder.
- Open the copy from the C: drive to confirm it works.
- Move files out of OneDrive
- Select everything in your OneDrive folder and move it into your new folder on the C: drive. This way, the files are stored locally and not trying to sync.
- Stop auto-syncing
- Right-click the OneDrive cloud icon in the taskbar → Settings.
- Go to the Sync and backup tab, then turn off Folders syncing.
- You can even choose to unlink your PC from OneDrive if you don’t want automatic uploads at all.
- Clean OneDrive online
- After you’ve checked that all your files are safely on your computer, you can log in to onedrive.com and delete the extra files to free up your 5GB space.
- Don’t worry, if the files are now in your C: drive, deleting from OneDrive will not remove them from your computer.
- Check local copies
