reset one drive

Steve WSO Admin 35 Reputation points
2026-09-26T10:42:17.3566667+00:00

We have a 'One drive' account that was used for a charity (self funding) Alcoholics anonymous. We have made changes to the local needs and we wish to archive the one drive files onto our office pc, and then clear the drive and start again. We run a telephone help line service and this has changed over the years, we take calls from still suffering Alcoholics and signpost them to appropriate help, since covid our volunteers are working from home, so having all the info on our office pc is not helpful. I have setup a way to make this work on line but I wish to store other things on our One drive, e.g. log sheets volunteer training docs.

The existing documents are redundant so we wish to download it as an archive. Restructure the One Drive file storage and start over.

We do not have access to large funds, the only money we have is our own collected by passing the hat at meetings.

I am aware that MS grabs everything it can, including repeated useless images just to pushup our need for more space, in my view this makes MS a bad actor as it's not easy to delete any of this.

Our fellowship however, is based on honesty and we have no opinion on outside issues, so it's for you to help us or not.

So please allow me to download everything on our One drive, and restructure the file system

Thank you

Steve C

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | Other | Windows
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Answer accepted by question author
MuhammadYousufkhan-0113 80 Reputation points
2026-09-27T14:06:11.5766667+00:00

Hi Steve,

Thank you for reaching out, and thank you for the vital work your fellowship is doing to keep the help line running.

You can absolutely download everything to your office PC as a permanent archive, clear out your OneDrive cloud storage, and restructure it from scratch. Here is the most direct way to get this done without dealing with complicated setups:

Step 1: Download Everything to Your Office PC (The Archive)

The easiest way to pull down a clean, full copy of all your files at once is through your web browser:

  1. Log into your account at live.com on your office PC.
  2. Go to My files in the left sidebar.
  3. Hover your mouse near the top column header and click the circle checkbox next to "Name"—this will select every single folder and file on your drive at once.
  4. Click the Download button at the top of the page.
  5. OneDrive will package all your data into a single .zip file and download it straight to your PC. Once it finishes, right-click the zip file and choose Extract All to save your permanent archive securely on your local hard drive.

Step 2: Clear Out Your OneDrive Cloud Storage

Once you are 100% sure your local backup on the office PC is complete and opens properly, you can empty the cloud:

  1. Back on the web browser, with everything still selected, click Delete at the top.
  2. Go to the Recycle Bin on the left menu and click Empty recycle bin. This immediately frees up all your cloud storage space.

Step 3: Set Up Your New Clean Structure

Now you have a completely blank canvas. You can immediately click New > Folder right there in the browser to start creating your clean, organized layout for your active log sheets, volunteer training docs, and online workflows.

Regarding the space issue you mentioned—if you are using the OneDrive desktop app on your office PC, you can stop it from automatically grabbing personal folders (like your PC's Desktop, Documents, or Pictures) by right-clicking the OneDrive cloud icon in your taskbar, going to Settings > Sync and backup > Manage backup

, and turning off the toggles for those local folders.

Please let us know if you hit any snags while downloading the zip package, and we'll be glad to guide you through it.

Best regards,
Yousuf Muhammad Khan

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  1. Steve WSO Admin 35 Reputation points
    2026-09-27T14:25:05.83+00:00

    'Accepted'

    Thank you

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