Is there a way to stop OneDrive from syncing desktop?

OneDrive plays an important role in your daily life and work, saving a lot of significant data for you. However, you may encounter some OneDrive issues during the process of use. For example, sometimes OneDrive keep syncing everything, which will take up so much cloud storage space in your account.

Generally, there are many files and folders on your desktop. If OneDrive is constantly syncing, how to stop OneDrive from syncing desktop effectively? Read this post and you can select a suitable solution to stop syncing your desktop to OneDrive.

How to stop OneDrive from syncing desktop: 9 ways here

To stop OneDrive from syncing desktop, you can choose to pause the syncing task or stop it completely. For each of the solutions, we prepare detailed steps as follows.

Way 1. Pause OneDrive from syncing

If you want your OneDrive to stop syncing desktop for a while, we advise you to pause OneDrive from syncing. OneDrive can pause syncing for 2 hours/8 hours/24 hours. After that, the syncing task will be restarted.

1. Find the OneDrive icon in the taskbar and click on it.

2. Press the More icon to expand the Pause syncing option. You can select a term for pausing syncing.

Way 2. Quit OneDrive directly

There is a direct method that can stop OneDrive syncing desktop - quit the OneDrive application from your computer. Then all the OneDrive running tasks will stop. But it is possible that OneDrive will start syncing your desktop when you launch it later.

To quit OneDrive completely, you can find the Quit OneDrive option on the More menu likewise.

Way 3. Disable Internet connection

OneDrive is one of the best online storage for files, which needs a stable Internet connection to work normally. Thus, if you need to make OneDrive stop desktop sync, you can disable the Internet connection on your computer to achieve it.

Way 4. Unlink your computer and OneDrive

Once you disconnect your computer from OneDrive, the syncing task will stop as well. You can open the OneDrive settings page. Under the Account tab, click on the Unlink this PC link, then your computer will lose connection with OneDrive and the syncing task will stop.

Way 5. Turn off auto save feature

Sometimes, OneDrive keeps syncing your desktop because you have enabled automatic OneDrive sync from PC to cloud. If you want to stop OneDrive from syncing your desktop, turn off such an auto save feature. Likewise, go to OneDrive settings to configure it.

1. Click on the Auto Save tab. Uncheck the two options under Photos and videos and Screenshots.

2. Press the Update folders button to Stop protecting your desktop.

Way 6. Delete desktop files in OneDrive folder

Your OneDrive may keep syncing your desktop from the OneDrive folder. Once you put files or folders into the OneDrive folder, OneDrive will sync them to the cloud automatically. Thus, if you want OneDrive to stop syncing desktop, you can delete desktop files in the OneDrive folder.

Way 7. Uninstall OneDrive on your computer

If you want to stop OneDrive from syncing desktop, and do not need to use other features in it, you can consider uninstalling OneDrive on your computer. The files and folders in your OneDrive account will not get lost.

To uninstall the OneDrive application, please go to the Start menu and choose Control Panel. Then you can see the Uninstall a program option. Click it to uninstall OneDrive on your computer.

Way 8. Hide OneDrive from computer

If your computer is based on Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating system, the OneDrive client is built in the system. Thus, instead of uninstalling, you can try hiding OneDrive from the computer.

Navigate to Windows File Explorer > locate and right-click OneDrive > General > Tick the box next to Hidden. After that, quit OneDrive in the taskbar.

Way 9. Turn off automatic startup

To stop OneDrive from syncing desktop automatically, you also need to disable the automatic startup feature in OneDrive. Go to OneDrive Settings, and uncheck the Start OneDrive automatically when I sign in to the Windows option in the General section.

Tip: How to syncing files to OneDrive selectively?

If you are troubled by OneDrive automatically syncing your desktop, you may need a new way to sync files to OneDrive selectively according to your requirements. We prepare a free cloud backup service that can help you a lot - CBackup.

• In CBackup, you can choose certain files, folders, pictures, videos, programs, hard drives, etc. to sync to OneDrive.
• There is a scheduler feature in CBackup that can let you make scheduled sync. Then CBackup will sync your files automatically with the selected frequency. But it will not keep syncing all the time.
• In addition to OneDrive, you can sync files to many other cloud drives directly like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.

Here are the easy guidelines to sync files to OneDrive selectively.

1. You need to download and install the CBackup desktop client from its official website. Sign up for a CBackup account and run the CBackup client to log in to it.

2. Press the Storage icon, and click on OneDrive > Authorize Now. Give CBackup authorization to access your OneDrive account. CBackup uses the OAuth authorization system to protect your account security.

3. Then go to choose the Sync option. Click on Sync PC to Public Cloud.

4. Select any files on your computer as the sync source. And chose a OneDrive folder as the sync destination. Then press Start Sync to sync files to OneDrive at once.

★Tips: Once you install the CBackup desktop client on your computer, you can enjoy more backup and sync features for free.

Backup PC to public cloud: For better protection, you can backup files to OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox via CBackup.

Combine cloud storage: If the free 5GB cloud storage in your OneDrive account is insufficient for you, you can use the combine cloud storage to get free OneDrive storage.

Free cloud storage space: If you need more cloud storage for backup, you can use the 10GB of free cloud storage in CBackup Cloud as a cloud backup space.

To sum up

How to stop OneDrive from syncing desktop? We have provided you with 9 valuable solutions. If you want to sync files to OneDrive in an easy-to-use way, you can consider using CBackup. It also allows you to sync external hard drive to OneDrive, and many other types of data as well.