Change Your Windows Folder Locations Back to Their Defaults from Microsoft OneDrive

Thanks for the guide. This is why I'm never using OneDrive ever again because it likes to move your files around and then when you get fed up with it and uninstall it the problems just don't stop. It stole my files and several of the library folders so for a while now I've had like 3 different pictures folder some how. Its so cancerous.

I was using 1drive to save 2GB of files. I wanted to put 15GB of files from my old laptop onto my new laptop so set up a folder in my 'user' folder and uploaded them from a usb drive believing that 1drive would not touch it.
Next day 1drive sent a message to say I had exceeded my storage allowance and needed to buy more storage otherwise I could not access any files or emails!!! That sounded like blackmail. I checked to see what was wrong and found that 1drive had discovered the new files and without asking put them on cloud. All my files in File Explorer were marked with a large red X and not available.
OK I thought, I'll just delete the big file from cloud; I did that and it disappeared from my laptop too! I then discovered that I had NO FILES ON MY LAPTOP at all, they only existed on cloud - I was horrified as when I agreed to use 1drive, the permission was for 1drive to COPY my docs and photos to cloud for backup and NOT to steal them and delete the files on my laptop.
After much research, I managed to get them all back on the laptop and then unsync 1drive.
I was so stressed by this as the files contained important photos and 100s of documents from 3 years of family history searches.
The idea of 1drive seemed good but I have gone back to using an external hard drive for backup.
PS the day after I sorted this, my laptop terminally crashed - was there any connection?

This is a really lousy instructional video. You're assuming too much of the viewer knowing what you intend and that the viewer knows file explorer really well.; plus, you move your highlighted cursor way too fast. I kinda get what you're doing, but the instruction is too fast. Half or more of the problem is Microsoft itself; it wants to discourage any change to its desire for us to use OneDrive. But even you say at mark 4:00 that "I hope this isn't too confusing...."

Thanks. Why would someone need to do that rather than always keeping them on the Onedrive path? In what scenario would someone need to restore to default location?

it only let me do it for my docummnets folder but not my desktop folder. pls help

Why is this even a thing in the first place? I had broken apps not working because of this issue, as those apps cannot write to the cloud, breaking the installation. Spent 3 hours trying everything and ended it with a big facepalm when I realised the data folder was generated on OneDrive, completely empty.

I cant readdress it??

Thanks!!!

Excellent.....yours was the only good solution I found. Thank You!!!!!

I wonder how many people really like Onedrive and use it?

one drive is the worst piece of software infestation I have ever seen
I hate it.
And I have tried to remove it completely
But its like a weed it keeps coming back

Somehow I was having this problem but I didn't even have onedrive installed, NOR DID I EVEN HAVE BACKUP ENABLED. So I had to go install one drive, turn on backup, and then immediately turn it off. This kind of sh!t makes me really despise Windows and Microsoft in general and makes me want to just fully switch over to linux. I probably would if gaming wasn't such a disaster.

I am on Windows 10. I uninstalled onedrive before telling it to stop backing up. I do not want to use onedrive at all, but the real documents folder still won´t move. What do I do?

Microsoft is asinine for not letting me choose to use onedrive or not in the Windows 10 setup.

Great video. I actually did not know my files were set by default to OneDrive when I updated to Windows 11. As windows 11 is the most invasive and intrusive OS to date. However, there is a considerably quicker way to do this. After you stop backing the folders OneDrive is monitoring, you can simply transfer all of them at once. This is usually done by moving the entire "Desktop" (default in OneDrive) to your local User folder. This is accomplished much the same way, but instead you do not have to go folder by folder, file by file. For me this was the better and safer option, because it assured everything on OneDrive was being moved to local, because afterwards I planned to completely clean by running a cloud nuke, and uninstalling OneDrive permanently. However, even after doing this, it constantly kept trying to reintroduce itself into my system, which it did successfully a couple times, so I needed to take more actions, one of which involved removing my device from my MS account, and then only connecting via secure browser if I needed MS for anything. I was truly struck by how much data they were involuntarily collecting without my knowledge or consent. In fact after I asked them to please stop.

I recommend completely removing any MS cloud backup from your MS account. If you need cloud storage, find a company with a good reputation and reasonable prices (they exist I promise), that will both store and encrypt all your data, be it pictures, documents, media, etc., if you need access to this data remotely on different devices. If not, then the fix is even more simple, buy an external drive with the amount of space you think you will need and simply transfer all your data to it. Then it's just a plug away, and you can also encrypt and password protect that drive.

If you don't want to do any of these things and still store your data on your MS account with their cloud storage that's fine. But it should be known, as MS employees have widely stated, this data is available to the masses. Anyone at MS can freely browse your data whenever they want, and it is also easy for even novice hackers to browse all your MS cloud data. This is known fact. But if privacy is of zero concern, and to some it is, I do not judge, then OneDrive might be the right fit for you. Sorry to get off topic, but I literally just learned this in the last few months, and it took my breathe away at what little privacy I had with the default settings of the windows OS.

Class video mate, much appreciated. Cheers.

Dammit, I wish I found your video earlier! I ended up fixing this problem the hard way, using regedit.exe

THANK YOU

Omg thanks, the ui changed a little bit but is still working

Thanks so much!

too complicated ... got lost ... I will try again, thanks though.

Thanks you. I had to reinstall it and figure things out, but I got it cleared up.

LIfe Saving

Thank you 🙏

so i dont know what i did and now i dont see my documents folder and i have a copy of hhd with the same stuff. how do i make everything normal

Exactly what I was needing. Onedrive was driving me MAD! Thanks so much for this video!

Disgusting how insidiously & deceptively MS does this. I would move to Linux instantly if it wasn't for a program I use that's not available on Linux.

because of you my friend finally can live a happy life because he can make folders on his desktop THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!

I am so horribly horribly lost. My One Drive looks very different and when I try to put them back on my computer it says there's not enough space even though I just had them ALL on there a few hours ago...

Helpful. Thank you!

Most helpful video ive ever seen thankyou

I really hate Microsoft for trying to force their crappy cloud services on us.

Thank you so so so much! For MONTHS I've been trying to change the location on the OneDrive files and now it finally worked!

I have another friend who followed the steps on a Windows 11 computer. All files on Desktop, Pictures, and Documents were hijacked and put into the OneDrive folders (pictures, desktop and documents). She was constantly getting messages her OneDrive was full. We followed the same sequence. as shown in the video. Stop the backup. We unlinked and went to the folder to copy the files from OneDrive on the computer. However, all her files in OneDrive (desktop, pictures and documents) on her C: drive were totally gone. She had a lot of files, especially photos. All gone! What the @@&&##! This is way beyond evil. We cannot change the path of the documents folder back to c:|users\username\documents. It gives the error message just like in this vide. However, those OneDrive folders are empty. Is there a different process with Windows 11 since this video was created? Something is truly amiss. This worked fine on a friend's computer who had Windows 10. We looked up the steps on Microsoft's help pages and they were missing some of these steps. There is definitely a specific sequence that must be followed. Even Microsoft's own instructions are useless.

Have you tried this on the latest versions of Windows 11? One of my friends stopped backups and uninstalled this insidious OneDrive app from their computer. Now when we follow these steps to return the folder structure back to normal (i.e. out of OneDrive). we can't change the path. So we went to remove the files from the OneDrive Documents folder and to paste them into the real document folder. We got the error message 0x8007016A cloud file provider is not running. Any thoughts on this? Nothing in the help forums is helpful. This is one messy program. Should be an opt-in not a something that hijacks our folder structure and puts things in the cloud. If I want files in the cloud, I will put them there myself. Microsoft did a real poor implementation of a very unpopular service. I remember in the old days OneDrive was horrible and now it is pure evil. Any ideas, short of a clean reinstall, of fixing this problem with this error code?

Not works to me in 2023

Please help me, after a done process till stop backup ....then in the documents it's not showing location option ...please solve

Thanks! I just reinstalled windows and ended up on a full online MS account. Slowing removed on the MS BS but I was really confused when I went to put more personal files back and found they were defaulted to one drive. Had to reinstall the app from MS's site just to get access to the settings. lol

you are the only one who made a video about this prob this vid was so helpfull

Now I have another question I am hoping someone can help with. I did this method and it worked for all my folders and documents in them except for any PDF's which are still missing for some reason. Any ideas?

Oh and I wanted to ask if anybody knows about certifications and whether or not putting everything back to the way it was and where it's supposed to be is that going to fix certifications that I have for a couple programs such as an architectural AutoCAD program?

You know I really honestly cannot believe that Microsoft would automatically take all of my files off of my computer without even popping up a little notification that says "hey when you start using our software to sync and backup your data we're going to wipe your computer clean and put everything on our system.) I don't think there's a sink or backup service out there that would do this. I can certainly see the need for it for certain people who may have very large files but just automatically do it and not ask if that's what we want that is ridiculous.

Thanks for making this. Solved my problem!

Thank you, finally i find this video

Couldn't do... Got confused from which folder fils moved

Thank you so much for this video!!

thank you so much

The screen is blank when I try to view how to move all files from onedrive back to computer. Help!

Microsoft continue to shit on people, to be honest that a clean install makes you default one drive folders is fucking enraging and not only that you´ve got to go to great lengths to have to redirect everything just to be normal again, fucking microsoft to be honest, just fucking getting in the way because you only realize that it´s default one drive folders when you are out of space which is very soon if you dont have any space purchased as default is only 5 gb. Microsoft how hard can it be to let ME use MY computer and you just make an operating system half decent.

THANK YOU