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Follow these steps when you want to properly disconnect or unsync folders from your Windows File Explorer interface without deleting the cloud versions.

You will know you are syncing because there will be icons in the status column:

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Step-by-step guide

  1. Right-click on the folder in Windows Explorer and click Free up space to remove any locally-saved copies of what is on the cloud.

    image-20240212-164329.png

    This step isn’t necessary, but makes the process cleaner and faster if there are a lot of files to unsync. This removes any “real” local copy and all that is left is a “placeholder” item.

  2. Once the OneDrive cloud icon stops spinning and OneDrive is fully sync’d, click on the OneDrive Cloud (bottom right) and click on the gear icon.

    image-20240212-165719.png

    Note: if the cloud icon is still spinning, it is still syncing.

    image-20240212-165730.png

  3. Click on Settings.

    image-20240212-165807.png

  4. Click on Account in the OneDrive window.

    image-20240212-165840.png

  5. Find the folder you want to unsync in the list and click on the Unlick this PC button.

    image-20240212-212726.png

or click choose folders to be available in your one drive, these files will be available on demand and unselected folders will be hidden from File Explorer

image-20240212-212917.png

  1. In the confirmation popup, click on unlink account.

    image-20240212-213024.png

    Note: The popup does tell you that the locally available files will remain on your device while online only files will be removed.

  2. You may see that the Status column in Windows Explorer show that changes are occurring.

    image-20240212-180303.png

    Depending on the number of files on the drive, you may need to wait some time for changes to finish before moving on to the next step. The OneDrive app has to go through each cached item and disconnect it. Wait until OneDrive is fully synced.

    image-20240212-180339.png

  3. Once everything is finished updating, the status column for the unsynced folder will be blanked out. This indicates it is no longer connected to the cloud drive.

    image-20240212-180548.png

  4. Once it is no longer connected to the cloud version, you can right-click on the folder in Windows Explorer and delete it.

    image-20240212-180650.png

    There are several indications that the files are no longer syncing:

    1. In the OneDrive App, the folder is no longer listed in the Accounts list under Settings

    2. Status icons are no longer present

    You will note that the OneDrive context-sensitive menu in right-click is no longer present.

  5. Click Yes to confirm deletion.

    image-20240212-181218.png

This is only deleting the local copies on the computer. You can check the cloud version (directly in Teams or SharePoint) to confirm the files still exist there.

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