Windows 10: How to remove OneDrive from my PC without loosing files

Good afternoon,I have asked a similar question before and the answers I got were unhelpful, but seeing as this is a slightly different issue I figured I would ask again. Several months ago, I disabled automatic OneDrive syncing on my laptop. However, I've just discovered that it has turned itself back on and that all of my Documents, pictures, and even some app directories have been instead been automatically installing onto my OneDrive folder instead of on local storage. I discovered this when I was editing a presentation on ProPresenter, which for some God awful reason the default directory

:)

 

Why were SMART Files Removed from OneDrive in Windows 10?

Technical Level : Basic

Summary

This article details why SMART files, also known as placeholder files, were removed from OneDrive in Windows 10.

Details

OneDrive has gone through many changes in Windows 10, most notably the removal of SMART files (placeholder files) from OneDrive. They still exist in Windows 8.1, however they were removed, hopefully temporarily, from OneDrive in Windows 10 because of the
fragmented sync engines between OneDrive on Windows 7/Mac, OneDrive on Windows 8.1, and OneDrive for Business. The following article details what changes the OneDrive team made and why they made them:

Taking the Next Step in
OneDrive

From a development point of view, it's a much better approach to consolidate their codebase, but from a user point of view, it's very frustrating.

Like many of us, if you want that feature back, please vote for it here on the OneDrive UserVoice page:

OneDrive UserVoice: "Sync online only" for Ondrive

Getting Started with OneDrive and Choosing Folders

To get started with OneDrive in Windows 10, please review these pages to familiarize yourself with the tools new processes:

• Find your files - Windows Help
• Syncing and Saving - Windows 10

Since you cannot choose which files are Available Online-only and Available Offline, you can choose the folders you want to sync. Review these two pages:

• Keeping Fewer OneDrive Files on your PC
• How to see all of your OneDrive files in File Explorer

 

Windows 10 - OneDrive

Right click on the app and one of the properties has an option to not automatically start it. Uncheck, restart the computer, and it should stop. If you want to go another step further, find the OneDrive app in the start menu, right click on it and uninstall.

If that is still insufficient, there is a batch uninstaller for OneDrive available online. I can copy the code here if you need it.

 

Remove Devices

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



I understand that you are facing issues while removing the device from your Microsoft account as it keeps popping back after removing.



It could be possible that the device was using OneDrive with the same Microsoft account and that might be the reason you are able to see the device listed under your profile. I would suggest you to remove the device from OneDrive
and see if that helps.



You can follow the steps to remove the device from OneDrive.

1. Login to
   https://onedrive.live.com.
2. Now on the left hand pane click on PC’s.
3. Now click on the devices that are listed under PC’s and on the right hand side click on
   Remove PC.

If the issue persists, please get back to us with the results of the troubleshooting steps to assist you further.



Regards,

Prakhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator