How do I fix OneDrive syncing problems?

OneDrive, is one of the best-known cloud services in the market. OneDrive provides an official desktop client for you. If you are using Windows 10 or 11, it will be re-installed on your computer. With it, you can perform sync tasks on a desktop.

However, there are many OneDrive syncing problems you may encounter during the syncing process, such as OneDrive isn’t connected, OneDrive files not opening in the desktop app, and more. Among them, many users like you meet the core problem: OneDrive desktop not syncing.

There are many different factors for such a problem, but you can find a suitable solution for your OneDrive desktop application in the following content.

8 solutions to fix OneDrive desktop not syncing

When you encounter the desktop OneDrive not syncing issue on your computer, don’t worry, please look through to learn more about these 8 different solutions.

Solution 1. Restart OneDrive desktop

When you meet some OneDrive issues, the first method that may work is to restart the OneDrive desktop application. This method is suitable for many OneDrive errors. If your OneDrive not running on  PC, you can also perform it to make it back to normal.

Before restarting the OneDrive desktop, please exit it on your computer. Just find the OneDrive icon in the taskbar and right-click on it to select Exit. After that, go to the Start menu to run the OneDrive client again.

Solution 2. Check available storage in OneDrive

Sufficient cloud storage in your OneDrive account is a prerequisite for smooth sync tasks. Thus, when your OneDrive do not sync desktop, you need to check if the available storage in OneDrive is enough for your files. If not, you need to increase OneDrive storage in advance.

To know if your OneDrive storage is used up, just navigate to the OneDrive Manage Storage web page. You can get more cloud storage by emptying recycle bin, upgrading to advanced subscription plans, or merging some free cloud drive accounts together.

Solution 3. Check your files

When you perform OneDrive sync from PC to cloud, you need to know something about the limitation on your files. If your files do not meet this limitation, you will meet the OneDrive not syncing desktop issue on your computer.

• Check file size

If your file is larger than 10GB, OneDrive cannot sync it. To upload large files to OneDrive, you can try to compress your file in advance. Then, go to upload ZIP files to OneDrive.

• Check file name

Make sure that there are no special characters like ", *, :, <, >, ?, /, \, |,etc. in your filename.

• Check file path

Please make your files close to the root directory because the maximum limitation on file path is 400.

• Check existing files in OneDrive

If there are files with the same name in OneDrive, your sync tasks cannot perform successfully.

Solution 4. Reconnect OneDrive and your computer

Reconnecting OneDrive and your computer is also a common solution to fix OneDrive issues. You can unlink OneDrive in the Account tab from OneDrive Settings. Next, try to link your computer to OneDrive again.

Solution 5. Disable the Office upload feature

There is an Office sync feature in OneDrive, which may have affected OneDrive desktop syncing. So you can try to disable such a feature to see if your OneDrive return to normal. Go to the OneDrive Settings page, and uncheck Use Office to sync Office files that I open under the Office tab.

Solution 6. Check for Firewall and OneDrive conflicts

There may be conflicts between the Firewall on your computer and OneDrive if your computer is based on a Windows operating system. You can go to make Firewall allow OneDrive to run by adding it to the exception list. Just go to Windows Settings > Update & Security > Windows Defender > Windows Defender Security Center > Firewall & network protection to do it.

Solution 7. Reset OneDrive desktop

You can also try to reset the OneDrive desktop manual to solve the OneDrive not syncing documents folder issue. This method requires a stable and high-speed Internet connection. Follow the step-by-step guideline to reset your OneDrive desktop:

1. Press the Windows and R keys at the same time to open the Run box. Then input %localappdata%Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset in the blank.

2. If your OneDrive desktop does not run again, you can type the command to start it manually: %localappdata%Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe

Solution 8. Reinstall OneDrive desktop

If all the solutions cannot solve your OneDrive desktop not syncing issue, you can reinstall OneDrive desktop on your computer to see if it can get back to normal.

1. First, you need to uninstall the OneDrive desktop app on your computer. GO to Windows Settings > Apps > Apps & features. Click Uninstall next to the Microsoft OneDrive option.

2. After uninstalling the OneDrive desktop completely, go to the OneDrive website to download the latest version of OneDrive desktop application and set it up properly.

Tip: Use a better way to perform OneDrive sync

If OneDrive issues have effected your user experience, you can consider switching to another way to perform schedule OneDrive sync with ease.

Here comes a professional free cloud backup service called CBackup. It provides comprehensive backup and sync features to let you sync data from your computer to OneDrive easily.

Compared with the OneDrive desktop client, CBackup has many advantages and shining features.

There is no limitation in sync tasks so you can sync files to OneDrive without errors.

Many mainstream cloud drives are supported to be the sync destination including OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.

The operation steps to sync all files to OneDrive are quite easy and here is the detailed guideline:

1. Download the CBackup desktop client from its website and set it up. Sign up for an account and run CBackup to log into your account.

2. Choose Storage on the left. Click on OneDrive > Authorize Now. Please follow the wizard to let CBackup access your OneDrive account.

3. Click on Sync > Sync PC to Public Cloud here.

4. You can select any type of data from your computer as the sync source. Choose a OneDrive folder as the sync destination. Then, tap Start Sync to sync data to OneDrive smoothly.

What’s more, you can try many other backup and sync features in CBackup for free.

● When you need to expand cloud storage in a cloud drive account, you can merge different cloud drive accounts together to get unlimited online cloud backup space with the combine cloud storage feature.
● You can set up backup tasks to different cloud drives including OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
● There is a free cloud storage space called CBackup Cloud, providing 10GB free cloud storage for each account.

The bottom line

Now, you can fix the OneDrive desktop not syncing issue. If OneDrive errors make you troublesome, you can consider switching to another tool to create OneDrive sync tasks. We recommend you a free cloud service called CBackup. With it, you can sync or backup files to any cloud drive account directly.