OneDrive sync has a mind of it's own

Question

OneDrive sync has a mind of it's own

Neil Forsyth 0

I'm mostly here to vent, but if anyone has any bright insights, lemme know:

I constantly get frustrated at OneDrive Sync having a complete mind of it's own. Just give me some basic buttons: "Sync everything now", or even better "Sync THIS file first" button - it's supposed to "just work"... but it doesn't. Here's the latest frustration:

I have a bunch of PDFs on my PC that I want to read on my tablet, so using Windows Explorer I create a sub-folder for them on OneDrive, drag them in and watch the onedrive icon in the system tray as it supposedly uploads them all. (Sometimes this is the point that gets stuck... I put the files there, but the system tray icon says it's fully synced, doesn't seem to acknowledge the new files for another 5 excruciating minutes, and there's no way for me to poke it - hey, there's some new files, go do your thing!). But today, it happened fast... I see them sync.

Ok, so now I should be able to open my OneDrive on my tablet and navigate to that folder and it'll be there, right? Nah... Ok, so it's about 6Mb, might take a minute. So I sit there impatiently swiping down on the tablet to refresh the parent folder... Meanwhile I see a few other things in the parent folder that need cleaning up so I go back to my PC and do that while I wait. Simple renaming, deleting and rearranging files. Those changes appear on my tablet IMMEDIATELY... But my 2.3MB and 3.7MB PDFs still aren't there, despite being connected to excellent home WiFi... come on, they aren't THAT big... I keep swiping to refresh, getting frustrated more... I kill the OneDrive app, reopen it... same sh*t. So I go back to my pc, open OneDrive in Edge, verify the folder seems available on the website... Right click, copy link. Create txt file. Put the link in the txt file, close. The text file syncs immediately on my tablet. Open txt file, follow link... opens instantly, with my PDF files already fully downloaded... didn't take time to load, the files already existed on the tablet, just weren't visible! I go back to the parent folder and hey, the new subfolder is there... WTAF Microsoft.

Some variation of this circus happens every time I get the bright idea to use OneDrive to transfer some files to look at on another device... I usually end up putting the files on OneDrive then ALSO using some other method... USB key, emailing myself, maybe Windows Phone Link... literally every other solution is more reliable than OneDrive. 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

If you got this far, thanks for reading.

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Craig Long 18,535

I'm a firm believer in using Files On-Demand wherever possible. If you use your PC for business purposes, I suggest keeping your files always available there but freeing up space on your tablet and see if that works better for you.

Craig Long 18,535 Reputation points

2026-08-26T20:08:59.4833333+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzIA9uykIhE&t=43s

Answer 2

Even though Windows 11 has been on the market for almost 5 years (in October) we still see people who don't understand what OneDrive is or how the OneDrive app works. And the truth is: neither one is intuitive. Both require a good deal of learning in order to use them correctly.

The OneDrive app's job is to sync your computer with your OneDrive. That will be endlessly frustrating to anyone who doesn't understand syncing, because it will appear as though individual files and even entire folders are moving around haphazardly, or disappearing altogether.

I suggest you open the OneDrive app and turn syncing off until you have the time to learn about cloud storage, file syncing, OneDrive and the OneDrive app. Then you can go back to using the OneDrive app (if you want to) and make it work for you instead of against you.