Where Are My OneDrive Files?

On your PC… or perhaps not.

Sometimes, OneDrive tries so hard to be both helpful and flexible that it ends up shooting itself in the foot. Files can show up in different places in different ways or seem to disappear altogether.

I’ll cover some of the variations and their impact on where your files live.

Your OneDrive files

OneDrive files can live in different places and be fully or only partly downloaded. They might be on your PC, online only, or completely hidden. OneDrive’s backup “feature” complicates things by moving files without telling you. If your file is in OneDrive, check OneDrive.com online.

Two basic rules of OneDrive

1. On your PC, OneDrive works on one and only one folder: the OneDrive folder. On my machine, the path to that folder is:

C:\Users\LeoN\OneDrive 

On your PC, “LeoN” would be replaced by your Windows username.

Anything not within that OneDrive folder is unaffected by OneDrive. That means if you want files to be free of OneDrive’s interference, make sure those files are not within the OneDrive folder. That means “C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive” is nowhere in the path to that file.

Unfortunately, as we’ll see shortly, OneDrive takes steps to confuse even this simple concept.

2. The other important thing to realize is that everything in OneDrive is also stored and available at OneDrive.com online.

Regardless of what shows on your PC, if your file is in OneDrive, it’s available online at OneDrive.com. If you can’t find a file on your PC, look online.

The rest of this article is all about the location and state of the OneDrive files on your PC: the space-saving features and the three states your files may be in; how files disappear completely; and the terrible backup “feature” OneDrive aggressively provides.

Space-saving feature

When we talk about where your OneDrive files really live, this is the first feature to understand. Technically, it’s a feature to save space on your PC, but it also sidesteps the possibly huge initial download the first time you connect a new PC to your OneDrive account. For example, say I have half a terabyte in my OneDrive. When I set up a new PC, I don’t want all that to be downloaded. That’s a lot of space and potentially a lot of time.

As a result, OneDrive files can be in one of three states.

When you look at a OneDrive file in Windows File Explorer, its status is displayed with one of three icons (shown in the images below).

Online-only

This is perhaps the most confusing status because:

• The file is listed as being in your OneDrive folder on your PC. You’ll see it in Windows File Explorer.
• The file’s data, however, has not been downloaded.

When you open the file, its data is downloaded right then. For a large file, this means there could be a delay while the file’s data is fetched.

I find “online only” misleading because it’s not a restriction, it’s a state. I like to think of it as “Online only right now, but it’ll be on the PC if you try to use it.”

This state is represented by the hollow cloud icon in the Status column in Windows File Explorer.

Since it needs to be downloaded before you can do anything, you must have a working connection to the internet before you’ll be able to open and work on the file.

This file is not completely on your PC and will not be backed up by your computer’s backup.1

On this device

What happens when you download an online-only file? Its status becomes “On this device.”

• The file is listed as being in your OneDrive folder on your PC. You’ll see it in Windows File Explorer.
• The file was originally online only.
• The file’s data has been downloaded because a program opened or otherwise accessed it at some point.

In other words, the file is completely on your PC because it’s been used.

This state is represented by a hollow circle with a checkmark in it in Windows File Explorer.

This file is on your PC and will be backed up like any other.

Though it’s possible that OneDrive may elect to return this to its original “online only” state at some point in the future. To avoid that we have a third option: always available.

Always available

The third possible state of OneDrive file is “Always available.” It means exactly what it sounds like it means.

• The file is listed as being in your OneDrive folder on your PC. You’ll see it in Windows File Explorer.
• The file’s data has been downloaded.

There’s no “downloaded if” or “downloaded because”; an always-available file is always completely downloaded and available on your PC whether you use it or not.

This state is represented by a solid circle with a checkmark in it in Windows File Explorer.

This file is on your PC and will be backed up like any other.

Controlling the status

You can assign the status of any file. Right-click on a file or folder in OneDrive to see a context menu that includes options to apply one of the three states to that file.

Always keep on this device downloads the file’s data and ensures that the file and its data always remain on your PC.

Free up space removes the file’s data from your PC while keeping that data online in OneDrive.com. The file is listed on your PC but takes up no space until it’s downloaded if you use it again later.

If you make either of those changes to a folder, it applies to all files and folders within.

And, of course, if you want to download an online-only file, all you need do is open it. It’ll be downloaded and its status will change to “On this device”.

Nowhere to be seen!

There’s one more space-saving feature in OneDrive that can be confusing: “Choose folders”.

This is a selection you can make via OneDrive settings. (Right-click the OneDrive icon in the notification area, click on the gear icon, click on Settings, click on Account, and finally click on Choose folders.)

This OneDrive account has a folder called “Appears-In-Cloud-Only”. It’s unchecked in the list, meaning that, as its name implies, this folder will not show up on my PC at all. It’s nowhere to be found. However, the folder and its contents remain:

• In OneDrive.com online.
• On any other PCs syncing to the same OneDrive account that don’t have it unchecked in this setting.

You can make any OneDrive folder “disappear” from your PC by unchecking it in this settings dialog. It’s as if the folder doesn’t exist until you visit OneDrive.com. Besides saving space, it also avoids confusion: for example there are scenarios where accidentally accessing a folder can cause all of it’s “online only” data to be downloaded. By not even being visible on the PC, that won’t happen.

OneDrive backup “feature”

What I’ve discussed so far is basic OneDrive functionality for any files stored anywhere within the OneDrive folder. As a reminder, that means any file or folder whose location begins with:

C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive

Any file or folder elsewhere on your PC is not affected by OneDrive.

Microsoft could not let this stand. Enter the infamous and, in my opinion, horrid OneDrive backup “feature”.

As you can see, this is available for your Documents, Pictures, Desktop, Music, and Videos folders.

I’ll use “Documents” for my example, but these concepts apply to all five.

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Backup “off”

Normally, the Documents folder lives in

C:\Users\<username>\Documents

As you can see, this has nothing to do with OneDrive. It is completely separate.

Backup “on”

When the backup “feature” is turned on:

• OneDrive creates a new folder: C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documents
• The entire contents of C:\Users\<username>\Documents is moved to C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documents.
• The system “Documents” shortcut is changed to point to C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documents.
• The original folder — C:\Users\<username>\Documents — remains but is empty.

The contents of your Documents folder become part of your OneDrive and are uploaded to OneDrive.com (and downloaded to any other PCs connected to the same OneDrive account). Microsoft calls this a backup. (Which it both is, and is not.)

The files are still there; they’ve just been moved into a new Documents folder now located underneath your OneDrive folder.

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Backup “on” then “off”

Things get extra confusing if you happen to turn on the backup “feature”2 and then turn it off.

• Turning it on moves your documents to the OneDrive Documents folder and changes the system Documents shortcut to point there.
• Turning it off only changes the system Documents shortcut to point back to the original — C:\Users\<username>\Documents folder. It does not move your documents back.

You are now left with:

• The existing contents of C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documents, unchanged, still in OneDrive.
• New documents will be created in C:\Users\<username>\Documents, unrelated to OneDrive.

In other words, you now have files in two folders both confusingly called “Documents”.

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