How to Stop OneDrive syncing your local folders on Windows 11 | A very annoying feature

Microsoft has recently changed how OneDrive Syncs with Windows 11, where OneDrive now syncs your local Desktop, Pictures and Documents folders to the cloud by default. If you find this annoying, here's how to stop it.

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[_w_w_]

This should be illegal for MS to access and take your files without consent. MS is getting more ridiculous day by day.

[louiewgroenewald]

Please keep us up to date regards the documents folder. This was really helpful. Thanks.

[clowny]

I turned off sync first. Later I looked around on Windows 11 Settings and clicked on Apps. There I found Microsoft Onedrive and I was able to uninstall. I checked the File Explorer and those extra folders were gone. All fixed. Hope this helps...

[katnian]

Thank you so much. I honestly hate not being able to clearly and easily pick what folder or documents I want on OneDrive. I don’t want everything there. I did what you said just for the desktop once and all 3 folders stopped syncing. Thank you.

[spheryc]

I also found out that changing and deleting shortcuts on my desktop will change the desktop layout on another laptop, is there any way to fix this? I think it has something to do with OneDrive.

[innerg]

This was making a program of mine crash by forcing the program to read the one drive docs instead of the root.

[CodyBarnette-GNARK]

So if I press “stop back up” it will still be on my computer right? And I won’t see that stupid one drive everytime I hop on

[elite_lurker]

I use my account on my home and office computers. Some desktop shortcuts aren't on my home PC that are on my home PC and vice versa. I don't want my two PC's intermingling the shortcuts, so I turn off the desktop backup and stop the sync, but it always seems to be turning back on? It gets really screwy and messes with each other. I use windows 11. Does anyone else have this issue where even when you turn off desktop backup it seems to want to turn back on?

[theonlyjamiebourgeois]

One drive was somehow bogging down my computer! Even just opening folders and moving quickly through them, and it seemed to be making everything "online only" files and folders. absolutely crazy-making. The last few weeks have been miserable until I finally figured out it was one drive. I went into settings / Account / and removed it! easy. done. good riddance! Everything running smoothly now!

[Mike-]

I had to replace hard drive on an old laptop I own I was going to give it to a friend. I replaced the drive I had to log in with my Microsoft account to get it activated. Then it just synced everything personal to the laptop. I started deleting all these files off the laptop and it synced to my one drive and my personal computer deleted all my files everywhere. Frustrating as hell I like OneDrive to back up my things but auto syncing between devices should not be default too on. Lucky, I had backups of the data on a portable drive.

[bbot]

It has corrupted my Steam games with the documents being taken hostage. I need to get documents turned off.

[johannajf]

I hate this autosyncing feature I much prefered the windows 10 system of chosing which folder/individual files I wanted to back up in the cloud.

[curator]

Understand that the "Documents" folder that your seeing is really just a symlink to the one in the cloud drive. SO rename the Documents folder to Cloud Documents, and create a new folder on your user profile called Documents. Then copy everything out of Could Documents and into Documents

The key is understanding that its really a hard symlink, and not an actual folder. They just added a custom icon and custom file type to cover that.

[Divergence]

I just logged out of the account linked to the one drive now its not connected all together. :) Ya can still add manually via your email. But yeah I was tired of all the issues I started having with word.

[VelocityLuna]

If I have 2 pcs logged in on the same windows account and I unlink one pc from onedrive, Will the other pc be affected?

[charliekeevill]

For you guys that want to stop your One Drive syncing ALL files (Win 11)- in your task bar you will ave a Cloud icon - this is One Drive - click there and go to settings - you will see option for Syncing - and Pause - you can click Quit One Drive and it will remove the Cloud icon from your taskbar and stop syncing altogether.

[kamso]

Its happening in windows 10 too its so annoying😡😡😡

[Daegggoat]

first disconnect your one drive, it will delete everything that's backed up but go to your one drive the just copy and paste everything from there and everything will now be locally stored

[nrmrwui]

This method seemed to side-step OneDrive from messing with my Documents folder in Windows 11. Step 1. In the Quick Access region of File Explorer right-click on "Documents" then click on "Unpin from Quick Access". Step 2. Under "This PC" click on the "C:" drive and navigate to the folder C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents (where MyUserName is your user name). Step 3. Right click on C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents then click on "Show more options" then hover over "Send to" and finally click on "Desktop (create shortcut)". Step 4. Right-click on the desktop shortcut just created and click on "Pin to Quick access". This works for other folders too like Pictures, Downloads, Music Videos and others.

[jbodden]

GREAT ADVICE, UNTIL ONEDRIVE REFUSES TO LET YOU COPY FILES OR DOWNLOAD THEM TO YOUR ACTUAL DRIVE.
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