OneDrive topics

OneDrive Archival of Unlicensed Users

JCCloud_FA — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:19:48 GMT

The change enforcing archival of unlicensed OneDrive users after 93 days was announced in January of last year but seems to be hitting tenants very gradually.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/unlicensed-onedrive-accounts?WT.mc_id=365AdminCSH_spo

I'm curious what other organizations are doing to tackle this change and how widespread the rollout has been so far.

When the change was announced, did your organizations do anything to prepare?
For those of you who are already seeing archival in your tenant
- When did it actually begin?
- Particularly for very high volumes of unlicensed accounts, how are you handling this?
- Have you had any luck with Purview content search and export for retrieval of files?

OneDrive icon overlays

hspindel — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 08:51:44 GMT

I have fully disconnected OneDrive from my computer, and actually uninstalled the OneDrive app.

I still get OneDrive icon overlays on my desktop (for example, a green checkmark).

They don't hurt anything but they are annoying. Can I get rid of them?

OneDrive file blue in progress icon meaning?

wjc — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:44:38 GMT

I uploaded some videos to my OneDrive Photos section, but they don't show up under Photos. It shows up under Files -> Photos with a blue in progress icon next to it. This didn't happen a month ago, and I couldn't figure out what the icon meant. At first, I thought it was syncing, but it's been 11 hours, and it's still there. Any ideas? thanks

What is the blue icon next to my files mean?

wjc — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:29:02 GMT

I recently uploaded some files to my OneDrive Photos, but they don't appear under Photos; they only show up under Files -> Photos, and they have this blue icon next to the file name. What does that mean? Any ideas?

OneDrive “Share” window stuck loading from File Explorer (works on web)

tonyretana18 — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:00:26 GMT

Description:

Hi all,

I'm experiencing an issue with OneDrive where the "Share" option from Windows File Explorer gets stuck indefinitely loading (blank window with spinner).

Details:

The issue occurs only when using right-click → Share from File Explorer

Sharing works correctly from OneDrive web interface

Issue is affecting multiple users in the same environment

OneDrive sync itself is working normally

Troubleshooting already performed:

Reinstalled OneDrive completely (clean install)

Cleared local cache and removed residual folders

Reinstalled Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime (Evergreen x64)

Cleared Windows Credential Manager entries

Reconnected Work/School account (WAM reset)

Tested on different networks (including mobile hotspot)

Windows fully updated

Environment:

Windows 11 (corporate environment)

Microsoft 365 / OneDrive for Business

Observation:

The issue seems isolated to the File Explorer integration (possibly WebView2 or WAM-related), since web sharing works fine.

Has anyone experienced this behavior recently or is there any known issue with the OneDrive Explorer integration?

Thanks in advance.

Random Scammy PDFs Appearing in "Recent"

ArthurOff — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:55:48 GMT

Not sure what this is, but these files are appearing in "Recent" (https://onedrive.live.com/?view=1), and there's no way to remove, hide, or even open them.

Onedrive Web search : "Location" column always shows "My Files" for folders path

gpion — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:35:22 GMT

reproducible bug in the OneDrive web search results

Summary:
the "Location" column systematically displays "My Files" for folders, regardless of their actual location in the directory tree. This does not affect files — files correctly display their real path in the same column.

Expected behavior:
The "Location" column should display the actual parent path of the folder (e.g. My Files > Subfolder A > Subfolder B ...).

Actual behavior:
The "Location" column displays "My Files" for every folder result, regardless of where the folder actually sits in the hierarchy.

Note: The same search correctly shows the real path for files inside those same folders. The issue is exclusive to folder-type results.

Environment:

Account type: Personal
Reproducible: Yes, 100% consistently

Impact:
This makes it impossible to disambiguate between folders with the same name located in different parts of the tree when using search.

Please let me know if additional information or screenshots would help.

Thank you.

Upgrading 365 Personal bought from Google Play

stevejd21 — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:24:35 GMT

I previously bought OneDrive 365 Personal from the Google App Store and now want to upgrade to 365 Family purchased from Microsoft (to take advantage of the Workplace Discount Programme available from my employer). It seems that I can't do a simple upgrade however - Microsoft Support states If you bought Personal via Apple/Google Play, cancel it there first and wait for it to expire before purchasing the Family plan on the web. How can I do this without losing the 800gb of photos and files currently saved on OneDrive?

Critical OneDrive Data Loss – Files Disappeared Without Any Trace While Folder Still Exists

dearpoetty — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:17:25 GMT

I am experiencing a serious data loss issue in OneDrive.

One of my folders ("PHOTOGRAPHER") and all its subfolders still exist, but ALL files inside have disappeared completely.

Important facts:

Files were uploaded and confirmed to exist
No deletion activity in logs
Nothing in Recycle Bin
Restore OneDrive does not recover them
Personal Vault was never used

This is NOT a user error and NOT a typical missing file issue.

I have already contacted support multiple times, but I keep receiving the same template troubleshooting steps without any real investigation. My case was even closed without resolution.

This appears to be a sync overwrite, corruption, or system-level data loss.

As a paying customer, this raises serious concerns about data integrity and reliability of OneDrive.

Has anyone experienced this before?

Is there any way to recover data beyond the standard user tools?

How can this be escalated to engineering level?

This is critical data for me and I would really appreciate serious guidance.

NB : I have attached a screenshot of the folder structure, including multiple subfolders, to clearly show that the folders still exist while all files inside them have disappeared.

Three Documents folders in OneDrive

maryjo9991 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:26:56 GMT

I have three documents folders all with the same data. How can I get rid of all but one? Very confusing!

myname-personal
users/myid/documents
users/myid/documents/documents

Impossible to login

ilcesco_milano — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:50:35 GMT

Hi, I was connected with Onedrive with one account A and I could see it in my File Explorer.

Now I had to close that account (external email) and I created a new account B (outlook.com).

I unsync the account A ... but now I can't connect account B the loading page of "Microsoft OneDrive" icon is not working and ... I can't see my onedrive in the File Explorer...

Any idea?

And I have not started yet to move all file from onedrive account A to onedrive account B
thanks for your help

Francesco

Account hacked - no real help anywhere

Mansemat156 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:03:40 GMT

6h ago my account got hacked by some twerp from Russia. I wasn't quick enough to stop him as he changed my email, alt email, password, removed passkeys, 2FA and whatever else. Even clicking the "this is not me" on the recent sessions didn't do anything. Only one mail was given and that was the one that prompted me that something was wrong (had to check for phising too so lost precious seconds).

I got logged out of my account completely and have been doing the same back and forth with microsoft "support" for the past hours.

After filling in the Account Escalation form I get a mail stating that all is lost and that i pretty much need to suck it up. 1TB of files (also important ones) just gone?

The support chat tells me to keep filling in the form and sending proof that i'm the owner to the email adress given but no reply has come.

I need to get in contact with someone who can actually help in order to get my account back.

None of the stuff works, the online forms loop me, I can't send codes cuz everything goes to the hackers account.

Why can someone from Russia just login on my account and within 3 minutes change everything and there's NOTHING i can do about it?
Why isn't anyone truly helping to get my files and account back - cuz everything connected to that account is of course gone too.

Posting this from this account since the other one... is unusable for above reasons.

I need help, I need all my files back.

OneDrive on MacOS Eating Up Huge Amounts of Storage

jbelack1984 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 02:47:47 GMT

Hardware: M3 Max MacBook Pro 14" (14 Core CPU/30 Core GPU, 36GB, 1TB)

Software: MacOS 26.4

OneDrive Version: 26.002.0105 (Mac App Store version)

I use OneDrive to sync files between my PC (primarily used for gaming) and my MacBook Pro (pretty much everything else) mostly because I'm paying for Office 365. I've noticed in the MacOS storage storage section of settings, there's something taking up ~170 GB of storage.

Digging around, I found the culprit: Library>Cloud Storage>OneDrive is currently sucking up ~143GB of storage. It seems like OneDrive is keeping large numbers of files stores locally.

Legitimately have no idea why this is the way it is, or how to solve the issue (or if there is even a resolution). Like, why bother with files on demand when the application is going to store half the files locally, anyway?

Enabling OneDrive Health Sync

underQualifried — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:30:16 GMT

Hello, once again being victimized by Microsoft 😒

Have a series of users reporting constant sync errors. We've reached out to Microsoft technical support and they just successively told us it was garbage and not to use it.

Anyway, trying to get the Sync Health Dashboard to work, based off this document:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/sync-health?tabs=windows

It's one of those Microsoft documents that the community CAN'T edit, so of course - it's out of date and incorrect. From what I can figure, based on research from other sources, most of this process is now arbitrary, and you have to create a 'EnableSyncAdminReport' in some policy location in the registry.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OneDrive < already exists, but not referenced by documentation

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\OneDrive < key doesn't exist, but is referenced by documentation.

but this sorta 'try it and see' methodology really upsets me. Anyone have any insight to this, and why the documentation team fails to update the documentation, or whether this process will work or not?

Files not accessible on OneDrive app

ShadowMarter — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:00:20 GMT

My files are not corrupted - if I download them form browser site of onedrive, they can be opened without issues. Nevertheless, my pc folder synced by the OneDrive app, which worked fine until today, became problematic. PDF files show an "access denied" message. Tried logging out and logging in, didn't help.

Unable to @ mention external collaborators in comments within Office online files

bynumhoekstra — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 19:53:58 GMT

Is anyone aware of whether Microsoft will someday enable the ability to @ mention users who do not belong to the M365 tenant within comments in Office online files? I've attached a screenshot of what this looks like in a Word Online file in OneDrive.
There are a number of Microsoft feedback posts about this, but it really feels like an unnecessary gap in functionality.

Anyone have any insights on roadmap?

Critical Sync Failure on macOS: Local data ignores Sync Engine unless manually opened

gutierj6 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 20:03:31 GMT

Environment:

OS: macOS 15.7.4 (Sequoia)

OneDrive Version: v.25.224.1116

File Provider: Apple File Provider (CloudStorage) framework

The Problem: I am experiencing a persistent failure where OneDrive for Mac refuses to index or upload files moved into the local directory. The sync only triggers if I manually open each file or subdirectory, making bulk data management impossible. Files copied into ~/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal remain in a "Pending" or "Online-only" state indefinitely. Standard "User Intent" triggers (opening the file) work, but the background daemon (fileproviderd) does not acknowledge local filesystem changes (FSEvents).

Troubleshooting Already Attempted:

1) Standard Resets: Ran ResetOneDriveApp.command and OneDrive.app/Contents/MacOS/OneDrive /reset.

2) CLI Overrides: Attempted open /Applications/OneDrive.app --args -Settings (only opens Finder).

3) Metadata Clearing: Used xattr -rc to strip extended attributes and find . -exec touch {} to force timestamps; neither triggered the sync engine.

4) FileProvider Utility: fileproviderctl materialize is unresponsive or deprecated in this build.

5) Re-mounting: Attempted /unmount and manual cache clearing in Group Containers, but the UI remains "headless"—the Menu bar icon opens a Finder window instead of the Settings menu.

Current State: OneDrive is functionally a "Pull-only" service. It downloads changes made on other devices, but will not "Push" local changes unless I recursively open every directory manually.

Question: Is there a known method to force a full re-index of the File Provider local database when the standard reset flags fail to re-register the FSEvents observer?

OneDrive personal account not signing in 0x800704cf

GSS01 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 17:48:37 GMT

OneDrive app (Windows 11) personal account has stopped working.

Stuck on signing in.

After unlinking PC and attempting to sign in again as part of troubleshooting it comes up with a message about not being connected to the internet.

0x800704cf.

But the sign in works on a business account on the same PC.

Does anyone have a fix?

I have tried the following:

restarting OneDrive
reinstalling OneDrive
clearing cahed credentials
reseting OneDrive
firewall/antivirus disable check
check date and time settings
web sign in works

Deleted photos (About a Year ago)

Walera — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:24:15 GMT

How do i retrieve a couple of photos i deleted from my OneDrive about a year ago?

Microsoft deliberately blocks Affinity Thumbnails (.af) displaying on your PC

Onlyme — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:27:38 GMT

When syncing with OneDrive Microsoft deliberately blocks Affinity Thumbnails (.af) displaying on your PC.

After contacting OneDrive support, they admitted “This behaviour is by design”
It appears we are paying for a service where Microsoft select which thumbnails are displayed at Microsoft’s discretion.

Adobe files AI, PDF, PSB, PSD, Affinity’s main competitor are viewable as thumbnails.
Is this a corporate decision? It certainly is not to the benefit of Microsoft’s paying customers.