OneDrive suddenly became empty after university storage policy change Is recovery still possible?
Hello everyone, I am looking for technical guidance regarding a serious OneDrive for Business issue under Microsoft 365 Education. Environment - Microsoft 365 Education tenant. - University-managed account. - OneDrive for Business. - My account is still active and I can sign in normally. What happened On July 16, 2026, I signed into my OneDrive and discovered that my entire "My files" folder was empty. I verified the following: - I am signed into the correct account. - "My files" is completely empty. - The OneDrive Recycle Bin is empty. - "Restore your OneDrive" does not show any mass deletion event. - My OneDrive site is accessible, but there are no files. - I unfortunately do not have a complete local backup. A few days later, my university informed students that they had reduced the OneDrive storage quota from 5 TB to 30 GB due to a Microsoft/provider policy update. I suspect my OneDrive contained more than 30 GB because I had stored backups from my previous computer together with years of academic, personal and work files. However, I would like to understand whether exceeding the new storage quota could actually cause an existing OneDrive site to appear completely empty, or whether this suggests another issue such as: - OneDrive reprovisioning - Site replacement - License reassignment - Site deletion - Storage migration - SharePoint issue - Other administrative problem The university initially described this as a temporary Microsoft incident, but later told me that the files had been deleted because of the OneDrive application, without providing any technical explanation. I have already asked the university IT department to investigate: - Deleted Sites in SharePoint Admin Center - Second-stage Recycle Bin - Retention policies - Previous OneDrive site - Licensing history - Possible restore options My question to Microsoft experts is: 1. Can a storage quota reduction (5 TB → 30 GB) ever make an existing OneDrive appear completely empty? 2. Are there other administrative scenarios that could produce this behavior while leaving the account active? 3. Is there anything specific I should ask my Microsoft 365 administrator to verify that is commonly overlooked? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated because these files represent several years of academic, professional and personal work. Thank you very much.
ONEDRIVE WEB VERSION
I use the OneDrive web version because I don't want to install the OneDrive app, as I have very little space on my C: drive. So my question is: I copied all my music from my PC to OneDrive via the web a few months ago, but it has all disappeared again! I had to do this last year as well because it had all disappeared then too. Why do I have to keep doing this? It takes a very long time because my broadband is very slow. Luckily, I have a backup on an external hard drive, but I don't want to have to keep doing this! Does anyone know why my Music folder keeps disappearing from my OneDrive (web)?
Moving files out of unlinked, unsynced and disabled onedrive
I am out of storage space on my PC -Windows 11 and get reminders of that everyday. To help solve that problem I would like to move MyDocuments (a huge file) to Drive D. Here is the potential problem. I unlinked, unsynced and removed OneDrive in 2020, or so I thought. I still see the OneDrive symbol in Microsoft Explorer above the line from Drive C and other drives. Most of my files are accessible in Drive C, but not MyDocuments, Desktop, and some others. They can only be opened thru OneDrive. This always puzzled me, but since all my files are accessible to me, I haven't worried about it. Now I'm concerned that OneDrive still has its tentacles around some of my files. MyDocuments and Desktop are being updated, but my files in the cloud are seriously out of date. What does that tell me? If they are still tied to OneDrive somehow, does that complicate the removal of those files to Drive D?
OneDrive Taking up space on C: even when nothing is being kept on device.
Recently got a new device and had all my files on the previous device synced to my OneDrive. The C drive has about 120 GB of my data (including OS) but when I check my Disk space, I only have 5GB remaining out of 256. However, OneDrive seems to be taking about 150 GB on the disk even though all the files have the cloud icons on it.
OneDrive sync causes workflow inefficiencies and UX issues in Microsoft 365 and File Explorer
I would like to describe some workflow issues caused by the current integration between OneDrive, Windows, File Explorer, and Microsoft 365 apps. I understand that OneDrive is designed to synchronize files across devices, but in some scenarios the current behavior creates unnecessary delays, especially with slow internet connections or large synchronization queues. 1. Exported Microsoft 365 files are not immediately available in the selected OneDrive folder When exporting a Microsoft 365 file, for example exporting a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to PDF, the user can select a OneDrive-synced folder as the destination. However, the exported file is not always immediately visible or accessible in that folder through Windows File Explorer. From the user’s perspective, it seems that the file is first saved into a temporary or internal Microsoft 365/OneDrive staging location, then uploaded to OneDrive, and only later appears in the actual synced folder through the normal synchronization process. The issue is not that the file is never stored locally, but that it is not immediately available in the location explicitly selected by the user. This creates practical problems. After exporting a PDF, I may need to quickly locate it in File Explorer to copy it elsewhere, attach it, upload it to another platform, or use it in a web tool to merge it with other PDFs. However, even though I selected a OneDrive folder as the destination, the file may not be available there right away. A related issue is that Microsoft 365 or Windows may open the exported file through a browser or web link instead of opening the local file directly. This can trigger login prompts, open the web version of Office, and interrupt the expected desktop workflow. Expected behavior: When saving or exporting a file to a OneDrive-synced folder, the file should become immediately visible and accessible in the selected folder in File Explorer, while OneDrive continues uploading or syncing it in the background. If the user selected a local OneDrive path, Microsoft 365 should prioritize the local file workflow and avoid redirecting to the browser unless explicitly requested. 2. File duplication inside OneDrive should use both cloud-side copy and local optimization Another issue occurs when duplicating or copying a file that is already stored in OneDrive, especially within the same OneDrive account. Currently, the process may behave like a traditional local copy: the file is downloaded if needed, copied locally, and then uploaded again as a new file. This is inefficient when OneDrive already has the source file in the cloud and the operation is simply a copy within the same account. Ideally, OneDrive should combine two optimizations: Perform a cloud-side copy when possible, so the duplicated file appears quickly in OneDrive online and on other devices. Reuse the local cache when available, so the current device does not unnecessarily download and re-upload the same data. This would make copied files appear faster on other devices as online-only placeholders, ready to be downloaded later if the user opens them or marks them as available offline. The other device should not have to wait for the first computer to download, copy, re-upload, and then synchronize the change. Expected behavior: When copying or duplicating a OneDrive file within the same account, OneDrive should use a cloud-side copy whenever possible, while also reusing local data when available. The copied file should appear quickly across devices as an online-available item, without forcing a redundant download, local copy, upload, and synchronization cycle. 3. OneDrive does not dynamically prioritize files the user needs immediately A third issue appears when OneDrive has a large backlog of pending synchronization changes, especially after using another computer. In this situation, OneDrive seems to follow its own synchronization order, even if the user opens a specific folder or tries to access a specific file urgently. For example, if there are hundreds or thousands of pending changes, and I need one specific document, that file may remain unavailable until OneDrive reaches it in the queue. Even when I navigate directly to the folder or attempt to open the file, OneDrive does not seem to move that item to the top of the sync priority. Expected behavior: OneDrive should dynamically adjust synchronization priority based on user activity. If the user opens a folder, selects a file, or attempts to open a cloud-only item, that file and its immediate dependencies should be prioritized over the general sync queue. Summary of requested improvements I believe these issues could be improved with smarter local and cloud prioritization: Exported or saved files should become immediately visible in the OneDrive folder selected by the user. Microsoft 365 should avoid opening exported files through a browser when the local file workflow is expected. Copying files within the same OneDrive account should use cloud-side copy operations when possible. Local file data should be reused to avoid unnecessary download and upload cycles. Copied files should appear quickly on other devices as online-available placeholders. OneDrive should prioritize files and folders the user is actively trying to access. Is this behavior expected, or are there settings to make OneDrive prioritize local file availability, cloud-side copy operations, and currently accessed files more intelligently?Storage full but only 1% used
I am not an IT high knowledge. Can use programs but don't always understand how tings work. I have onedrive with 1TB storage. I am wanting to use the account for backup of my files on laptop. When I look at Manage my storage it says 1% in use but when I try to place folders/files onto onedrive it says not enough space. I cannot understand this. I've tried emptying the recycling bin but cannot seem to be able to delete anything - either in one go or individual files. Instructions say "Delete in Navigation Bar" but not on my screen! Can anyone help me please?
onedrive sync issues
Hi We use OneDrive for Business and need a solution for sharing files and folders among a team while maintaining proper access permissions. Currently, each team member's Desktop and Documents folders are synced with their own personal OneDrive for Business account. In addition, we have a separate common OneDrive account that has been added to all team members' PCs, and all team members have Owner permissions on that account. When a user creates a folder or saves a file in the shared OneDrive location, it is actually being created under the common OneDrive account, not in the user's personal OneDrive. While this allows everyone to access the same files, we frequently experience synchronization conflicts and sync issues between users. What is the Microsoft-recommended approach for this type of collaboration? Is using a common OneDrive account with multiple owners a supported best practice, or should we instead use a SharePoint document library (or another Microsoft 365 solution) for shared team files, permissions, and reliable synchronization? ThanksOneDrive is soooooooooooooooooooooo slow!
Why is OneDrive for Business so unacceptably slow? I've had a case open with Microsoft Support since February and to date they have involved several different teams, run numerous diagnostics and tests remotely on my computer, but still haven't been able to improve let alone resolve the very poor download speeds we are getting across the company. They can see the issue with their own eyes, and the under-performing tests are appearing in their diagnostic logs, but for whatever reason they cannot fix their own systems! We have a fibre-optic leased line, 100Mbit over a 1Gbit bearer. Running a speed test, I am getting the full 100Mbit up and down, and yet when I am downloading a file (whether it's a few MB or a few hundred MB) from OneDrive, the download rate hovers between 500Kb/s and 800Kb/s. Uploading the OneDrive for Business is fine - the upload rate is between 7Mb/s and 9Mb/s. It's just the download rate that's the issue. Whenever any of our users save anything to OneDrive and the document is no longer cached, they have to wait for what feels like an eternity for the file to be downloaded before it can be opened. If they're opening the file via an application, then that application will hang and stop responding until the file has been downloaded from their OneDrive. Before we switched to Microsoft 365, we hosted everything locally. Anything we tried to open would do so almost instantly. But using OneDrive feels like we have travelled back in time to the days of 56K/ISDN. If this is how OneDrive has been designed, then it should not be labelled as a business service. There are other solutions out there from competitors that outperform OneDrive, and unfortunately if these issues are not resolved soon, I doubt we will be the only business who migrates away from OneDrive or even Microsoft altogether.
