Windows 10: How do I prevent and resolve duplicate but different content OneDrive folders?

I did a refresh/reset on my Dell desktop. I put all my documents and everything in my OneDrive folder but I did not want to spend hours downloading so I chose 'keep my files'. A few weeks later I noticed a problem and I realise that I now have two folders called 'OneDrive' they are almost identical. One is the real OneDrive the same as the cloud version and the other is just on the PC in a folder called OneDrive. I did not name this folder, I assume it was my old pre-refresh One Drive. I have two drives on my computer, a small OS C: drive 100GB which is why my operating system and progr

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onedrive duplicating my folders...

Hi.

Again, onedrive is going crazy and is duplicating my main folder, full of subfolders. It's locking me out of all my files. I have windows 10, Office 365 home. I paused synch at the moment before I have 1000 copy of my folder, which I can't open anyway!
Please don't ask me any question that will further delay the repair. Simply give me a step by step solution and then improve onedrive so this won't happen again to so many of us. I suggest you also add "onedrive" in the list of "Windows Topics" below since
thousands of users have issues with it.

Thanks

Michel

*** Email address is removed for privacy ***

 

OneDrive resulted in duplicate Documents folders, can't merge

I did try restore but it wouldn't let me. The result was the same, that being that it complained of there already being a system folder there (i.e., users\Chris\Documents, etc.)

I just looked in HKCU... as suggested and found the folders defined as "C:\Users\Chris\OneDrive\...". Interestingly, I found a couple of GUIDs other than the Download folder you referred to above. Both point to "%UserProfile%\OneDrive\...". They duplicate
the explicitly named Personal and Pictures folders assigned to "C:\Users\Chris\OneDrive\...", i.e., they point to the same folder.

Only Personal, Pictures and Desktop are assigned using the C:\Users\Chris\OneDrive string. As above, Personal and Pictures are duplicated as GUIDs. Desktop is not duplicated.

Can I just delete the GUID duplicates of Personal and Pictures (not Downloads) and change the OneDrive entries to "%UserProfile%\...," as some others are assigned?

Is it atypical that Cache is defined as "C:\Users\Chris\AppData\...", unlike other AppData folders defined using "%UserProfile%\..."?

Edit: if editing HKCU directly results in the duplicate folders remaining, that's fine. I can just move the contents of the unwanted folders into the corresponding defined system folder, then delete the duplicate folders.

 

Move the OneDrive Folder

Move the OneDrive Folder in Windows 10

When you set up OneDrive to sync with your computer, a folder C:\Users\XXXX\OneDrive will be created to store the contents. XXXX denotes your username. To move this folder to another location follow these simple steps:

1. Unlink OneDrive from your PC:

• Go to the taskbar notification area
• Right-click on the OneDrive icon
• Select settings
• Click: Unlink this PC

2. Delete the C:\Users\XXXX\OneDrive folder

3. Create a new folder (target folder) for OneDrive contents, e.g. D:\OneDrive

4. Create Directory Junction for the new folder

• In the search area of the taskbar type CMD and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
• In the command window type

mklink /J C:\Users\XXXX\OneDrive D:\OneDrive

adjusting it to your specific username and selection of the target folder

5. Link again OneDrive to your PC using the OneDrive icon in the taskbar notification area