Why Is My Desktop in OneDrive?

[@askleonotenboom]

✅ Watch next ▶ OneDrive is Not Backup ▶ kzbin.info/www/bejne/hn3diWSom8ytjKs

[@electrocat9]

You let it be understood that every computer has a different desktop folder in Onedrive

[@askleonotenboom]

@@electrocat9 My experience is that there's a single desktop folder shared across all machines. That's what people object to.

[@electrocat9]

@@askleonotenboom that's what I understood at the beginning of the clip and at the end I wasn't sure anymore. Onedrive behaves strangely, it caused me trouble long before I found out about it here from you... thanks. Onedrive cloud makes me refrain from using it, except for what is strictly necessary, being afraid losing any data.

[@davidkrause1563]

For complicated computer issues, you explain them with clarity and precision. I followed everything from start to finish. Great job Leo!

[@PopsSinging]

I recently had a client who bought a new laptop from Walmart and asked me to set it up for them. They wanted to create a Microsoft account and use it to log in. (Against my advice) They created the account, logged in, and a feature was automatically enabled without any action from either of us. (I immediately disabled OneDrive backups after explaining it to them.) This means that some people are encountering this feature as an opt-out, rather than opt-in, depending on the PC manufacturer. Thanks for the video explaining the issue, this will be an invaluable tool to direct clients to instead of explaining it.

[@askleonotenboom]

My experience is that it really is an opt-in, but it's positioned in such a way that you don't realize you don't have to, it doesn't explain what will happen if you do, and it's often presented in a way that doesn't mention OneDrive AT ALL. It's opt-in, but for all intents and purposes it acts like an opt-out, but that's after the damage has been done.

[@rickgibson7876]

I bought a new hp laptop specifically to run my laser engraver. Spent the first day getting rid of all the preloaded garbage that came with it including onedrive. It must be costing microsoft millions to operate the "free" onedrive system and since I am in the nothing is ever free camp it makes me wonder what their real motive is. My backups are either on external hard drives, usb sticks or sd cards.

[@patrickcatpop]

@@rickgibson7876 All modern windows builds are automatically built with OneDrive. If you delete it and later install Microsoft 365, OneDrive will be reinstalled.

[@eriksiers]

​@@rickgibson7876If a service is free, the users are the product.

[@micheleblackburn4736]

Thanks so much Leo! I have a small business, so I don't have IT on staff and these things make me crazy! I decided to create folders without any default folder name in windows, stopped the one drive games, and have a separate back-up service, plus I have a hard drive back up. I appreciate your help!

[@rodhimsley7731]

I have travelled a great deal around Europe, various machines and accounts. Now it is the day of judgement, 'retirement' what do I wish to keep and which do I wish to delete, remove, but always Microsoft. I have listened intently to two of your YT tutorials. Like manna from heaven, Clear and succinct. Thanks Leo. A wonderful place to learn, ponder and inwardly digest - As we move not only to cloud storage but what it entails - Thanks from a new convert.

[@michaelhawthorne8696]

I got rid of OneDrive a while ago......The amount of space it gives you for free is negligible and can cost too much for any reasonable amount.....not to mention Microsoft can get their hands on your data. Nice video Leo..... Your explanation was clear.... thank you.👍

[@TomVeik]

I've been avoiding one drive since long before I knew of Leo. It's reassuring to know that Leo has come to the same conclusions about one drive that I did long ago.

[@marksulloway5669]

Nice information. I had OneDrive eliminate my entire documents folder on my laptop without any cloud backup. How do I say thank you? Going forward after a clean reinstall, I removed OneDrive from this PC. I would only access OneDrive through the web interface in the future - if I decide to use it at all. I prefer to do my own manual backups to other less intrusive online providers and personal local physical backups.

[@NavinBetamax]

Backup term used here is actually a sync process. NOT actual BACKUP as in a copy on a different location on External Drive. Syncronise !!!

[@KenSiarkiewicz]

Thank you for this very clear video. I had turned off the backup feature long ago. I wanted to get rid of One Drive because I don't really use it. I have two backups of my data on separate external drives and I periodically make a clone of my C drive. The latter has come into play once or twice ofver the last five years. My doubt was whether I could simply eliminate one drive. You have answered that question very well. It will be history on my machine. Tahnk you, Leo.

[@gjoseph1628]

Eighteen-thirtythree on the video, the right advice! Create non-standard folder. And for usage convenience, they might be on the machine's Desktop folder.

[@ThomasThornhill]

Thank you Leo for answering this question. I appreciate your help for so many computer challenges.

[@ngana8755]

Please do a video on what you recommend as the best backup service for data on a computer in case the computer gets lost, needs to be replaced.

[@davinp]

Microsoft pesters users to use OneDrive and backup your data on OneDrive, but they don't tell you how it works

[@billroberts9702]

Thanks! I "sort of" had this figured out, but your explanation puts my mind at ease about what happens

[@askleonotenboom]

Thank you!

[@dudmanjohn]

We, my wife and I, have a Microsoft 365 Family account. We both have one Windows 10 and one Windows 11 PC each . My wife uses the same login on both of her PCs so I will tell her about the potential issues Leo has explained so clearly. I have two separate Microsoft accounts, one was for a business, now closed, the other my personal account. I only use one account on each PC - Family edition allows up to six accounts each with 1TB of storage. I am, therefore, not going to have the problem Leo explained in his video. I am less and less impressed with the direction Microsoft are taking for the home user. Effectively they want to push everything into the cloud, like Google of course, but making it less user friendly.

[@georgea2583]

Hi, Leo, just like to say a big thank you for sharing these very helpful videos. I was totally baffled by One Drive on my PC, but after watching many of your vlogs explaining how it works I now have a better understanding of how it works. Keep up the great work. I have liked and subscribed. Cheers 🍻

[@garrymcgaw4745]

WOW!, didn't that get complicated quick, although I did GET IT I bet a lot of people as still scratching their heads. Thanks Leo 👍.

Your video is very explanatory. I've always had serious problems with OneDrive. I always deactivate automatic backup, but right after an update, as happened now with 24H2, it is automatically turned on and messes everything up again. I'm testing Google to leave my work files there and stop using One Drive. My problem is that I have a PC at home (I need Windows) and I have a Macbook Pro. OneDrive on the Mac is not good! That's why I'm thinking about moving on to another cloud solution, like Google or even Dropbox. Of all, the best is Dropbox, but its price here in Brazil is very expensive, at least in my case! Do you recommend any other services? What I need is just a way to save (keep synchronized) my files in a cloud in case there is a problem with my computers!

[@Ven-v3u]

Nice, also can you make a video of how to fix multiple one drive showing on the Explorer?

[@askleonotenboom]

I can't right now. I'm experiencing the same problem. Since it's benign, I'm not prioritizing it for myself.

[@Artemides456]

Well explained and needed.

[@byronknight4449]

One Drive is the first thing I disable and uninstall in a Windows Installation. My personal files are on a separate drive from Windows and I access them 90% of the time from Linux Mint. I try to keep them as far away from Windows as possible.

[@robf228]

You could rename your channel "Adventures in Windows". Great video by the way.

[@timroach5898]

Very clear, made me understand easily.

[@boblangill6209]

Thanks to your video I was able to untangle a couple knots that Microsoft had put into play. I noticed something you hadn't mentioned: the Public Desktop. As I was flipping the desktop back to my C: drive locally, I noticed that not all the desktop items were in the Desktop folders. Some of the items that appeared on my desktop screen weren't in either Desktop folder. I found them in the Users\Public\Public Desktop folder. Public Desktop is NOT synced to the OneDrive folder. How they got there? My guess it's due to my tendency to install apps as accessible to Any\All users instead of just my regular userid. I'm the only one who has physical access to my personal computers, so I haven't thought about the implications of this practice.

[@geoffphil]

Hi Leo. I have disabled OneDrive (it no longer starts with Windows 11), and unlinked it. BUT - my ONLY Desktop, and the one that shows files/folders on my "home" screen is the C:/Users/Geoff Phillips/OneDrive/Desktop one. In your video, it is the original non-OneDrive desktop that returns. What might be going on with my machine. I'd prefer not to have OneDrive mentioned in my folder paths!

[@askleonotenboom]

This part is VERY inconsistent. My advice is to learn to live with "OneDrive" in the paths. With OneDrive not running, then it's just a folder like any other.

[@geoffphil]

@@askleonotenboom You're right about how OneDrive can be instrusive. In trying to fix the location I ended up with TWO OneDrives in Explorer! A registry edit fixed this. Next time I setup a new computer I will avoid OneDrive if possible, but I might have to use my Microsoft account to activate Office 365!

[@BrownsFaninIowa]

THANK YOU for this!

[@daffyduk77]

brilliant clear explanations. I won't be using either Microsoft accounts, or Windows 11. Windows 10/local a/c s and then onto Linux and/or ChromeOS on Chromebook for me

[@dongunderson9352]

Hi Leo. I randomly chose this video to ask you a question. My folders and files in my One Drive folder on my desktop are not being uploaded to the cloud, and least not on a timely basis. eg: Yesterday I created a folder "one drive test", then created a word document titled "one drive testing", put that word document in the "one drive test folder", and cut and pasted that folder into the OneDrive folder. Today I logged onto the Microsoft One Drive cloud, and sure enough that newly created folder does not appear in my cloud documents. Why? What can I do to tell Microsoft One Drive to upload everything in my desktop onedrive folder NOW!

[@askleonotenboom]

There's no instruction to say "do it now", as it's not supposed to be neccessary. Check the OneDrive icon in the taskbar to see if it has any information. (You can send me screenshots by asking your question over at askleo.com/ask - the initial form doesn't take 'em, but you can the reply to the email with them.)

[@tekskilldev8310]

Thank you Leo. That onedrive is a teaser; they give you 5GB and then ask you to buy more space in the cloud. It (onedrive) neither frees the space of your pc nor it gives you extra space. Do you think it is giving you more storage space e.g. your pc has 256GB SSD will it say taking your 5gb folders to onedrive make your pc all 256GB storage available? I think no. Would really appreciate your expertise on it.

[@askleonotenboom]

It is most definitely NOT "extra space for your PC". It's cloud storage.

[@pvecch712]

OneDrive is so complicated. I thought it was simply like a stand alone external drive to where I could save documents I don’t want to keep on my composter or that o might want to access from somewhere else. Not so. It’s so intertwined with windows I hate it.

[@adamm8067]

I recently transferred my system to a new PC and got totally screwed by Microsoft’s tactic of enabling OneDrive “backup” by default. When I installed Windows 11 it automatically started downloading all the documents from my old PC, and simultaneously uploading everything from the new PC at the same time, completely mangling both the new install and the online “backup”. I spent hours cleaning up the mess and then just decided to wipe the new PC, start again, and disable OneDrive entirely. It’s a confusing mess.

[@steves1749]

After your recommended process, will Windows recognize that these folders are now local§? Can I do the other folders? i.e documents, downloads, etc.

[@askleonotenboom]

They were never not local, so I'm not sure what exactly you're asking.

[@ngana8755]

I literally got off the phone with Microsoft tech support to get them to help me disable OneDrive. The tech spent one hour trying to get it to disable cleanly. Warning: the Microsoft tech guy told me that OneDrive is not a backup feature like Carbonite, it is a SYNCING feature. Microsoft wants ALL your devices is OneDrive; consequently all your files and folders in all your devices are combined in OneDrive. If your desktop in one computer looked way, the the folders in your other computer looked another way because you wanted them separate, well, tough luck, because OneDrive means that all your desktops will have the same desktop items.

[@dkyrtata6688]

what happens when you turn on the feature on two machines containing the same file name on each machine but different content? Does the second instance of the file get ignored or does it overwrite the first instance that is on One Drive?

[@askleonotenboom]

It should raise a warning about a conflict.

[@MARC1TIM]

I tried to set One Drive up as just a mapped drive and dump the whole syncing nonsense. I find the instructions for such (without a client) either incomplete or just don't work. I would love to get that working. Do you have or know of a good tutorial for that?

[@askleonotenboom]

You do need a third party tool. There are several. I happen to use Mountain Duck.

[@jwpetr]

On my windows 11 computer (with OneDrive) the option to uncheck the desktop folder is turned on and grayed out and therefore it cannot be unchecked. Is this due to a really, really recent update to OneDrive? It isn't a big deal since I am the only user on my OneDrive account but I am curious.

[@robinpettit7827]

I discovered this myself. I am planning to migrate all my computers to a local login. I don't even get the XBox!

[@Chirita008]

Hi Leo! I recently had to replace the motherboard in my laptop. Since doing this, I lost some of my video files. I was able to recover/store the folders from the One Drive Recycle bin, however, the video files within the folders did not come back. Why did this happen? Are they lost forever? Please help!!

[@askleonotenboom]

There's more going on here than you're stating. Just replacing a motherboard shouldn't cause any of this. Without knowing what else was happening it's impossible for me to even speculate. Sorry.

[@Chirita008]

@@askleonotenboom I agree. The person I took it to says they only performed a system update through the manufacturer's website along with a driver update for the keyboard. Neither one of us know why or how this happened either. Which is why I reached out. The videos that were lost were of recent vacation trips, so I'm eager to get them back, but it sounds like that's not going to be possible. Only 1 other video folder with the videos files survived. Thank you for your quick response.

[@shadowdragon4293]

were should i store my folders then if there bigger than one drive?

[@dudmanjohn]

On your hard drive, you must have them there already i.e. pc drive is bigger than the Onedrive cloud you have e.g. 5 GB with a free Microsoft 365 account. Get an external drive for backups or use a cloud based backup service which would be safer than having the pc and backup drive on the same premises if you suffer a house fire or flood or other natural disaster.

[@askleonotenboom]

In ANY folder on your PC that is not within the OneDrive folder.

[@branchau]

The term "Sync and backup" in OneDrive Settings ought to be changed to "Synchronize". OneDrive is not a "true" backup application as Leo pointed out. It is simply a file synchronizing application and it does that quite well in my opinion.

[@repairman757]

Thanks for the video. This video was sponsored by M$ NOT!

[@MinesAGuinness]

As I was watching this video, OneDrive self-launched a popup to try to persuade me to sign into it!

[@reddawn5297]

I just uninstalled one drive from my pc. It’s still in one drive folder but nothing is copied into the cloud

[@pj61114]

Great job! I went APPLE in 2014 with consideration of going back to Windows. Windows had some excellent Operating Systems and some like ME that were the upgrade from hell ONE DRIVE, EDGE, ONE NOTE. You are their product NOT a customer. APPLE does something like that BUT, Microsoft turned out to be worse. I never recommend as every individual has their own preferences. Going back to Microsoft does NOT appeal to me at this point.

[@KazrBrekker]

What I hate about Microsoft is not respecting user choices. Apple too by default turns on iCloud backup but once you turn it off it doesn't pester you to start backing up again the way Microsoft does.

[@A.S.K.1]

Windows wants OneDrive to have your desktop and *_other system folders_* on it *_instead_* of on your computer. It was ON by default on my Win 11 home PC. It was a real PITA to get rid of it. It also was telling me it was full and I needed to upgrade to a paid version to keep going. Yeah right... not going to happen. The only way I have found to stop this is to disconnect from One Drive, and stop syncing with it *_completely_* . Download EVERYTHING that one drive has stored on it, back to your PC: if you delete it from one drive before you do this, it will be deleted from your computer as well... just - GONE. You can stop One Drive from starting automatically in the startup folder. You can turn off, disable, and even uninstall it from your computer. And make sure to sign out of One Drive as well. Look on the MS Support pages.

[@askleonotenboom]

It's not instead of your computer. It's in addition to your computer. That's why they call it a backup.

[@theol1044]

There is a major problem with using non-standard folders for your documents etc.: A lot of programs insist on dumping their stuff into the standard folders, most of the time without even asking. You'll end up with multiple locations to take care of (backup, sync, cleanup etc.), your custom folders AND the standard folders. And let's not even start talking about the gddmn 'AppData' folders. I've been trying religiously to keep my data out of the system partition, and it's a huge PITA.

[@askleonotenboom]

I have folders all over, and yet have only one thing to back up: my hard disk. That way everything on the disk, regardless of where it is, is included.

[@patrickcatpop]

I will 100% agree that OneDrive is a royal pain and quite invasive. I truly wish Microsoft would stop their tactics because it CAN be a good tool. I DO use OneDrive for ALL of my data files. I have used it a lot to help with retrieving version histories. I do agree that a rebuild of a computer or getting a new computer can be a royal pain because I have to stop OneDrive while I recover my files locally so that 700GB of files don't have to download. Why DO I run OneDrive? #1) To be able to access certain key files on a regular basis from my tablet and phone using 365 mobile apps. #2) As one part of a comprehensive data protection system. YES YES YES, I DO have a true backup solution that also runs. I used an advanced backup software solution to backup my system.

[@IshayuG]

This video doesn't even get us started. I should note that nothing in this video is wrong - especially not on the point that this is a sync feature and not a backup feature. It's like Dropbox, not TimeMachine. The first point to understand about OneDrive is that, by default, it only gives you 2GB of storage. While this seems generous, once all your documents and music and everything else is in the cloud, it's really not enough. Microsoft will exploit this by leaving your computers in a weird state of half-synced and asking you for money repeatedly, and that's when a lot of us go "hold up, I don't actually need this. I already have DropBox or iCloud or OwnCloud" One thing you didn't mention is that it changes environment variables. This is problematic because many applications, especially those originally designed for Linux like git, ssh, and bash will copy these variables on install. So now all your company's secret keys and passwords is on your home computer. So you scramble to turn it off, but these are hidden folders, and they are not moved back, but your environment variable is changed except not in bash. So now, on your work computer, using git from PowerShell doesn't work, but it does work from bash. Then you find the files and move them, and now bash doesn't work but PowerShell does. Worse still, your company secrets are still on your personal laptop! But it gets even worse than that - if you ever log into your personal account on Edge, Microsoft seems to love taking the opportunity to set up everything it can for you. You know, for convenience. Log into your personal hotmail account from work and now you've got OneDrive and the store and your music etc. set up - and your OneDrive. But oh no, you already have OneDrive for Business, and it's got policies, and they are being applied. Since OneDrive for Business and OneDrive both do this and both constantly get activated they're going to start fighting over your files and environment variables, move them back and forth, causing total chaos, mixing your personal data with company data, using up all your space, and the whole thing turns into a hilariously messy situation where it's honestly not clear where your files even are anymore. In summary, as a developer, I absolutely loathe OneDrive, and I particularly loathe how it seems to sneak up on me. I have never deliberately enabled OneDrive. I do not use it, and I do not want it, and yet most of my computers have had it enabled at one point or another. It just shows up and somehow enables itself, and it drives me crazy.

[@callmeNeno]

I thought iCloud Drive was complicated at first, but OneDrive & Windows are disaster

[@reefhound9902]

Desktop should have never been included in OneDrive. The icons are shortcuts to apps installed on the machine so it's a machine-specific folder.

[@charleshines5700]

Just as often they pester you to upgrade to Windows 11.

[@NavinBetamax]

......waiting for a Clean Dozen !!! Lol !

[@charleshines5700]

@@NavinBetamax I wish they would leave us alone with the forced accounts and all of the spyware! Then the menus all say click to show more. They should just call 11 what it is, Windows annoying edition!

[@NavinBetamax]

@@charleshines5700 ….you didn’t get it ? …. Dozen , as in 12 !

[@holgerd5242]

Linux is the solution. Ef M$

[@KirsiVackelin]

Spot on. Linux can be as simple or as complex as the user wants.

[@chichimus]

Recently converted my laptop to linux and if it wasn't for a few programs that only run on windows the desktop would be right behind it. Getting tired of the lying and forcing things down your throat that windows is doing.

[@txkflier]

Because people are lazy and put important files on their Desktop instead of in folders under Documents. Putting Desktop under OneDrive ensures they'll be backed up to the cloud. Now I'll watch the video.. 😎

[@askleonotenboom]

Oh, I'm sure that's the rationale. But it just doesn't make sense to merge them all, and to do so without permission.

[@txkflier]

@@askleonotenboom I have a separate Desktop folder under OneDrive for my laptop and I can get to either Desktop folder from my PC or my laptop. OneDrive has been great for me. However, I also make image backups occasionally and use File History.

[@StopWhining491]

Thanks, Microsoft. Not. Suspicion: Microsoft is using files to train its LLMs.

[@askleonotenboom]

Your suspicion is false. They've said so repeatedly, and in this regard I believe them. (If it were true and discovered/confirmed the blowback would be horrific.)

[@chichimus]

All I really want to know is where I send my bill for the time I waste tidying up microsoft nonsense :)

[@kersi-sandiego6036]

It WAS confusing until I watched this video and read "174265." Thanks Leo.