I’m terrified. I have Office 365 on my PC and they did an update that just stripped all the files off my PC and put the on OneDrive in some place where I can only find a few of them.
I think I made the mistake of permitting the update to manage Word files.
The lost files represent years and years of work. Some of it is on an external drive, but most of it is not. I back up to Carbonite so I hope I can recover some of the data but it is incredible that the update could do this.
When the update comes, don’t give them permission to do anything. Say no and wait. And back up to an external drive.
Never, EVER, allow an operating system require account and/or registry management on the cloud. The price for convenient is a complete loss of privacy and control over *YOUR* files. The minute MS requires an account or cloud-base setup to run a Windows machine is the last time I use a Windows-base PC online.
“The lost files represent years and years of work. Some of it is on an external drive, but most of it is not.”
That’s horrible. I’m sorry for you. I lost one-and-half years of my daily log on my MacBook when I upgraded Numbers, apple’s spreadsheet app. That really ticked me off.
This will show where the files have gone to:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/files-save-to-onedrive-by-default-in-windows-10-33da0077-770c-4bda-b61e-8c8e8ca70ac7
In the lower right corner of your screen where the clock is look for the blue cloud icon.
Click on it and then click on Open folder button.
This will show where the files are on your computer.
Click on the View online button and it will show where on their server your files are backed up to.
Once you have your files where you want then UNINSTALL Onedrive !!
I did after I noticed work files being listed in my Word program as recent files. I did not want my work and personal files to mingle or have the company know what I was doing at home as Office let’s your company spy on the files.
Always back up to an external drive!