Why Is My OneDrive Full?

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

Microsoft have progressively made File Manager less useful over successive versions of Widows. Initially the folders and files were shown in a simple tree format with all items revealed. The introduction of "libraries" created a level of confusion and File Manager is now at a point where it is a master of misdirection. If OneDrive backup moves files from Documents to it's own folder then it is only logical that the second folder is named "OneDrive-Documents" and not a duplicated folder name. At what point have beta testing surveys been checked and acted upon in this instance? I can't believe that there was no reports back on how confusing this situation is. Microsoft's handling of their client users is becoming unacceptable and I am almost at the point of following my wife's decision to move over to AppleMac. But for these AkLeo videos I'd still be trying to sort out the constant demands from Microsoft to increase my storage capacity beyond the 100GB I'm already paying for. I've moved most of my photographs from my laptop harddrive to an external SSD in order to put them beyond the reach of OneDrive now.

I want to say thank you so much you saved me. I have a family computer (my mother) that had this one drive full problem.

This is comprehensive, thank you! And , this is how they trapped me , they made me pay the basic one drive to increase my gigabyte memory in order to maintain my ability to send and receive emails ...I could not send or receive emails, of which I use mostly for sending and receiving documents . And of course thousands of pictures of 50 years plus family history and current family history ...half of which one drive still recognizes and can still view on the cloud , but the other older pictures are from older or altered files which the cloud no longer recognized, therefore non recoverable ....luckily, I have all the pictures in other non cloud locations...what a mess!

excellent video, but as I unchecked the program, I began downloading the files, but I now have two problems, first, not all files appear and second it does not download subfolders when downloading folders. Do you now of what can be done?

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.

Great video! Microsoft has turned into a real GREEDY nation! It's time to serioulsly bin their products and look for alternatives. It's too much now. In no time Windows will be on subscription model. And that will be the end of them. Let's start with "BIN MICROSOFT" campaign

Yeah is a money maker feature for Microsoft that's for sure. So annoying. Get rid of onedrive people

The god damn data pirates a.k.a. Microsoft is scamming everybody forcing our hands to buy more storage. There are aught to be a god damn law

one drive sucks

Things do get turn on she do not knowing what doing things get turn on

This is not really backing up folders. This is removing folders and taking them hostage. One Drive is useless. How do we uninstall?

Onedrive will download without asking and it's a nightmare.

One doesn't buy storage, one is RENTING storage. I say so because one has to pay a fee every month. It is like a renting an apartment. When you do that one has to pay every month. Thank you for this video. I don't know how to recuperate my mental pain, but I am going to change my email accounts to another ones. Because of this problem, I cancelled all my subscriptions on my emails.

Thanks, your video was informative. However, I may not be smart enough to manager this.

i removed one drive from my device and it still says it's full lmao.

fantastiic video!

I never consented to this onedrive garbage, they just copied shit from my computer than told me I couldn't use my hotmail because they filled my onedrive. fucking bullshit

Microsoft and Google are linked directly to the CIA/NSA so every picture you download or upload, the government now gets an instant copy...your 1Tb huge data storage becomes worthless, and the measly 5Gb Onedrive storage soon builds up, and these greedy IT ogliarchs yet again make a profit from the non IT savvy population.

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.

New user of freshly installed Win11 and I'm having fits with it. I've tried to install pictures to my Picture folder and it erased them, my videos, and my music. I'm strugeling with it but if It doesn't get resolved I may go back to win10. I hate this. It even erased them off of my back up usb drive.

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". 👍

One Dive hijacked my Desktop folder. I Uninstalled One Drive.

Thank you so much, i've spent the last two hours trying to fix this

Thank you that helps me a lot, but I don't know how to move the budget pictures from the onedrive to the computer.

FUCK MICROSOFT

THANK YOU SIR. YOUR VIDEO HELPED ME A LOT.

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!

Seriously FUCK WINDOWS!!!! It just take all my stuff from ALL of my units and try to put them all in Onedrive, even if I pause synching.
but if I pause syncing I can't change the backup policies.
but if I unpause it will fill up instantly and I can't change backup policies when the folder is full... the developer of this needs to be flogged!

THANKS BRO APRECIATE IT , I LOST ALL MY VIDEO AND PICTURES DUE TO ONE DRIVE

Thank you from the UK

If I'm getting this message in my pictures and I delete some will I now have more space?

This feature is crap. Purely designed to steal as much data as possible from your pc.

Thank you very much for your time and explanation, which Im sure will be very helpful to a lot of people out there with limited IT knowledge like myself. I genuinely think that Microsoft has turned very GREEDY and their undeniable goal above all now, is to SET people UP to BUY and BUY. Therefore and under my humble point of view, a LEGISLATION should be put in place to prevent Microsoft and others VIOLATING people's PRIVACY and OWNERSHIP of their Machines and Data respectively. Microsoft has NO RIGHT to use and profit from people's lack of IT skills. Im not an IT expert, but I also have noticed that some Microsoft Windows Features will eventually lead the customers in a straight head on collision with a concrete wall, when their machines start having problems. And the only help they get is a referral TO BUY SOLUTIONS either from Microsoft or from other companies. For example my D drive is BLOATNG UP with Windows Image Back Up Files at unbelievable speed, to the point that my D drive has almost run out of space, and it's now in RED. I wonder if somebody could assist here.

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.

Thank you sir! Why do I need a more complicated ....NO..

Very annoying feature .

VERY helpful. Thank you very much Leo!

Thank you so much. I work in IT, but this crap still made 0 sense to me. Man One Drive you suck.

This is a sane and sensible instruction. However I believe that there is a more nefarious explanation for MS building in vague information and confusion into this "feature". Many people will fall for the "Buy mo' storage" ploy and send them money for the fantasy Storage Problem. They are also hoping you'll get so baffled that you will go ahead and buy the madly over-priced "365" which is even more intrusive and confusing. I believe all this AND the cash grab when they wear people down, or in my case, need to get back to work, is the real plan. I sometimes find that I have wasted a great deal of time trying to get this sorted and to no avail. So now I am tolerating the problem until I can attack the daunting task of moving all my email and so forth to a new address not associated, With that goes all the people I must communicate with who'll have to be notified, etc.. Congratulations Microsoft. You have finally worn me down, however not quite the way you intended. I have had enough and so too will many thousands of people like me. They are preying on the less well versed which I think is as much like ransom-ware as anything I can think of.

Thanks to you I am finally starting to understand one drive. Microsoft is soooo vague.

thanks for the detail explanation. well one drive SUCKS!
now I need all that it took back.

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.

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!

OMG Leo you are a God to MS's evil.

Not seeing too many reasons to either want, or use, OneDrive.

I got a new pc with windows 11 and I can't get into the settings of one drive. I hate that my game got saved on one drive cause my documents should not be liked to one drive. I just want a normal desktop saved storage. Why can't it let me know what one drive dose before I had this problem.

Good video, just one question, I use one drive on a Samsung s8+ tablet, and the Samsung cloud combined with Microsoft into one drive, it states that I have 15 GB of storage with that combo. Have you ever heard of this? Thanks in advance

Trapped. What a hassle, trying to recover my files from the frozen onedrive account, one piece at a time, ouch, my eyes strained so much.