29 Responses to “OneDrive not syncing? How to force OneDrive to sync in Windows”

  • Mike says:

    Seems to be working… Thanks!

  • Jason says:

    For me, pausing/resuming or quitting/restarting OneDrive does not start the syncing.

    The only way it to unlink – ‘Unlink account’ and ‘unlink this PC’, then start OneDrive again, do the setting up steps again.

    • Ciprian Adrian Rusen says:

      Wow. That’s weird, and most probably a bug. It should not behave this way. Don’t hesitate to report to Microsoft using the Feedback Hub app found in Windows.

  • Lyle Gunderson says:

    Pause/Resume worked instantly. TOO EASY!

    Thank you thank you thank you!

  • Michael says:

    I have a very large PST file. I want to keep a copy of this file on my hard drive and want to exclude it from being uploaded to OneDrive. However, I do want other files to be uploaded from my hard drive to OneDrive.

    Is there a way to exclude a specific file or a specific folder from being uploaded to OneDrive.

    I am using Windows 10.

  • Jacob Nielsen says:

    It is missing the most common error !

    Go into your onedrive folder(d:/onedrive) and right-click on a folder and select “Always keep on this device” … immediately it will sync.

    I probably have the same problems as many, it has been set up by an it-department, but when you are in an offline area, you need your files. It will sync automatically when you are online again, but you can work where ever you are.

  • Bill Sanders says:

    Nice writeup. Too bad NONE of these procedures work.

    • Ciprian Adrian Rusen says:

      Can you provide more details? What Windows you’re using? What OneDrive app version?

  • Charlton says:

    Helped. Thanks.

  • Chris Maher says:

    I need help with a phone having this ridiculous problem, not a computer.

  • JohnIL says:

    One Drive should be a opt in instead of automatically signing you into it. It’s ridiculous that as soon as you sign into any Microsoft app it insists on signing you into One Drive or Mail, or Skype. There should be a opt in list that you could select which apps you want to be signed into. I pretty much backup locally, and could care less about handing Microsoft servers my files. I mean it seems like I read frequently about servers being hacked and information being breached. Same thing happens with Chrome OS, and Apple’s backup systems as well. Sign into your account and by default your entrenched into their ecosystem completely. Nobody is really sure where these servers are even located? Are they in the US? China? Who knows?

  • Donald says:

    Restart Device.

  • Lou says:

    One drive is not syncing from one of my laptops. It just says Processing 205 changes, then starts over again processing 11 changes, and keeps counting up to 205 over again. It lists the files it is uploading but they remain at 0.0 kb of whatever size they are.

  • DaMyrle says:

    I initially had Office 2013 and was saving pictures I edited on my editing software to OneDrive (Windows 7 OS). I upgraded to Office 365 and saved my pictures as always but now notice that my pictures are not being shared to all my devices. All my old stuff can be seen in other devices but anything new I saved to OneDrive is not; I can only see the newly saved pictures on my laptop where I originally saved them. In talking with Microsoft, they keep telling me to save in OneDrive.live.com. Is saving and sharing to other devices different from Office 2013 to Office 365? It is important to note that all my documents created in a Microsoft program (word, excel, etc) can be viewed in OneDrive on other devices- it is only other things like .jpeg files that are not. I’m thinking that saving a file to OneDrive in a folder I created is different in Office365.

  • PK says:

    My Windows 7 Onedrive has stopped syncing with my other devices and with Onedrive on the web.

    I have tried closing & reopening, closing and reopening the process through Task Master and reinstalling, but it refuses to update my device files?

  • Mr. Stern says:

    Actually, I followed your directions for manual update of files, exactly as described, and nothing happened. All files show as “sync pending,” as they did before I turned off onedrive and restarted it. No help, here… this is a terrible application. What was Microsoft thinking???

    • Anonymous says:

      Did you sign into OneDrive with your Microsoft account? We never encountered the kinds of issues that you describe.

  • Pat says:

    Followed all directions. Still not syncing. Size limit has not yet been reached. Do I have to have a microsoft account to use this?

    • Anonymous says:

      OneDrive works with a Microsoft account or a business account that is registered to use OneDrive.

  • Kzac says:

    Thanks for the article concerning Sync with One Drive. I ran into a problem where my one drive was not synchronized with my work system and could not access files from a remote location (Old data on my one drive). After reading this article and performing he manual Sync, my files are not available on line.

    This manual Sync will be a verification action I will perform daily to assure my files remain in Sync. Very valuable

  • Stephen says:

    This still doesn’t get my Onedrive to sync. Icon indicates Onedrive is up to date, but folder still shows versions of folders at least 2 years old rather than current.

  • michel says:

    Can’t you just right-click the OneDrive icon and choose exit? This works for me on Vista and Win 10. Then I just launch the app again when I want (at least on Vista, haven’t tried it on 10).

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