Why Is My OneDrive Full?

❎ OneDrive tries to make it easy to back up important folders, but at the cost of making some things very confusing.

OneDrive full
The “folder backup” feature creates duplicate Document, Desktop, and Pictures folder within your OneDrive folder and copies the original folder contents into them. If you had more than five gigabytes of files to begin with, this could immediately exceed your free OneDrive capacity. The simplest solution is to turn the feature off and make sure to back up your entire machine some other way — as you should already be doing.

Chapters
0:00 OneDrive Full
0:46 OneDrive folder backup
1:36 Managing the OneDrive backup feature
3:04 Documents vs Documents
5:35 Things can automatically move
6:00 Size limits
6:47 Move some files
7:51 Opt out
9:33 Avoid OneDrive folder backup completely
10:53 Back up some other way

More Ask Leo!

#askleo #onedrive #backup

[askleonotenboom]

Bonus... why you might have two Documents folders.

[sharsue]

Warning. Got a new Lenova laptop, moved files from old laptop to new, and guess what? One Drive was full! In other words, One Drive will be used without your permission. So be aware. For me who has never heard or familiar with One Drive, these videos by Leo regarding One Drive are invaluable! Thank you!

[MikaelKKarlsson]

Great guide. With the way that Windows nags the user to start doing this and with the intentional vagueness, it has effectively become a trap for millions of users who think they have to start paying for a service. While also making file recovery harder in emergencies.

[kathyw.]

This video is solid gold!!! I'm in OneDrive hell right now and may have lost ALL of my documents due to this stupid auto backup. Luckily I can recreate or restore most of what I've lost but it's still a headache. This video needs to be made viral.

[marianwhit]

"Heck" is not the word I would use. I only want the cloud to serve as extra storage...but NO, they want to see everything I have and make me pay monthly for my storage. A scam, and invasion of privacy. Thank you.

[Beelzy]

Oh man, this was driving me CRAZY! I must've deleted thousands of old emails before I realized that something was screwy with this 'OneDrive' thing taking up soo much of my storage. Thank you for this simple and enlightening video, it helped me so much!

[adrianasantana-delgado]

OMG!! Finally the explanation I needed!! I had barely started using the free one drive and that pesky message "one drive full" came up!! New subscriber here!! Thanks 😊

[elizzy]

Leo, you have explained the problem so clearly and simply. I am now going to follow your procedure. I think I will also test and back up each file before deleting from One Drive. I have subscribed.

[Magnify]

Very thorough explanation. Great help Leo ! thanks

[cmanho]

VERY helpful. Thank you very much Leo!

[susiewanng]

Thank you very much, Leo. Your explanation is so clear. I can now disable the annoying reminder to buy more storage. I don't need more storage as I am retired. I use an external drive for Picture backup.

[joeaguilar-teacherofthewor]

Excellent explanation. You kept me from jumping out the window. Thanks. I might buy a Mac next time.

[maddogrk]

Agree with previous comment. Great explanation! Makes it easy to hate Microsoft. I think they force things like this, not to help their customers, but just to satisfy their greed. If they wanted to help, they would give clear instructions showing how this feature can be properly used. Give customers a choice and the just might embrace it. If they don’t want it, maybe it’s because the product was developed without consideration for the customers’ requirements in the first place. Xerox learned this lesson the hard way.

[andy]

Thank you Leo very much for your help. {{Yes}} it's a little more confusing for most of us however you made it easier to understand ~ even though I needed to watch the video twice. I get confused (like perhaps some of the others) as to the "folder names" and where they are. I'm going to try and make put together a diagram or flow-chart that'll help me keep things straight. As a senior I easily get confused but a diagram/flow-chart might help me. Again "thank you so much for your help". 👍

[iovannadeiraola]

Oh my God!! Finally answers to my nightmare!! Thank you so much!!

[jonnewman]

Hey Leo - great explanation! Thank you! So I'll stop the backup feature and manually move all of the files back to the User's Document, Picture, Desktop Folders & use my CloudBerry Back-up software / cloud server. However, could you clarify two points for me? 1) I would like to use OneDrive and store selectively files & folders on OneDrive & my PC and keep them sync'd for access across multiple devices - what's the best strategy for that specifically? And secondly, can you remind us of the default User File Folder structure with a Windows 10 machine so I reset, put them back in the proper order? Really, really appreciate it!!! Again, excellent & clear video - finally I understand what happened & why!

[maddogrk]

Leo, after removing files from one drive and putting them in a separate area of my PC hard drive I went back in to try to turn off the back up on one drive. When I got into the settings and went to the manage folder backup section, only one of the folders had stop backup available as an option. That was my pictures folder. I clicked the stock back up and got the message that you indicated I would get but I persisted and stopped back up that folder no longer has a checkmark in the blue icon in the corner. However the other two folders did not have a stop back up option available. It looks like I may have left some small files in there. But I can’t figure out how to get to the stop option button, so I have the selected both folders. Is that enough to get me out of this terrible feature? I would really appreciate an answer on this. You do an excellent presentation and it is something I really needed. Thank you

[ijhtlie]

👍👍👍😊Excellent & helpful tips & explanations. Thank you, LEO.

[markcurranjr]

Thanks so much for this video. I was pulling my hair out with this Windows 11 update trying to figure out how to move files. It's turned off now, this video was really helpful.

[Gigi]

I just found this video. Thanks so much! I was totally confused and this helps a lot.