How to fix can't find onedrive SPO folder

Note : I am not a Microsoft employee and the responses are based on experiences and best effort.

Hi Grimble,

Thanks fo the updates.

This is going to need some understanding.

You have a personal Microsoft Account.
Personal Microsoft Accounts do not get Sharepoint.

Sharepoint is only available on Corporate tenants.

Personal Microsoft Accounts can be added as guests to a Corporate tenant.

What you are describing as OneDrive on the SPO Folder is likely a Folder sitting in someones Sharepoint, where you (your personal account) are added as a guest.

It is quite likely that you are able to access this over a browser with no issues at all. However when you are syncing, the sync can break from time to time.

The reasons for this are Conditional Access and Data Governance. (to keep things simple)

The is probably rules in place on the corporate tenant requiring guest accounts to verify themselves at particular intervals or in particular conditions. These are the times when the sync breaks and you are facing the issues.

As Thomas4-N has mentioned above, If you fidn that the problem is no there when you don't link, then you can choose to not link it if you are fine with uploading and downloading over a browser.

However if you need the convenience of using FIle Explorere instead of a browser, then Sync it when you need and when you know you are not going to use it for a while, then stop the sync (for the folders).

The way to identify the sync you want to stop is pretty simple.

Your Personal OneDrive will show as a White Cloud icon in your system tray.
Your sync to the Business FOlder will show as a Blue Cloud icon. To stop the sync temporarily, simply right-click on the blue cloud icon and select Stop/Pause Sync.

If this works for you, please Mark is as an Accepted/Resolved, so that it can aid others as well

If some part has worked, please add additional notes, so that I(Community) can provide additional support based on additional information.

Thomas4-N,

I'm looking at the Account page. There is only one account listed, with my name and email address shown. There is no indication of what type of account it is. Next to it is an option to add another account. If I follow that link, it asks me to sign in to OneDrive. I don't want to go any further with that as I don't want another account - just hoped it might give more information than that! When I've had to sign in (again) before it then goes on to ask me which account I want to use and I choose Personal every time. Hope that helps. It does refer to a Personal Vault. Does that identify as Personal or do those exist for both types?

I must admit, viewing online is new to me but found out how to do it quite quickly. Yes, I can view and access my files on the web.

The only confirmation I can find that this is a Personal account is when I click on the cloud icon it shows 'OneDrive - Personal Backed up and synced'.

Fingers crossed, I haven't had any issues for the last 24 hours. One thought I had is that some time ago, I found some advice that said large files could cause this. I have a couple of database files that are between 70 and 75 MB. Access files can be up to 2GB and the storage space is 1TB so I never considered this large. It takes a few minutes for OneDrive to back them up, but that's not excessive (we have a slow link out here in copper land). Nevertheless, yesterday morning I moved those out of the OneDrive folder (I use alternative methods to back up anyway which is just as well because when my computer crashed at the beginning of last year, I was unable to reconnect OneDrive at all and would have lost access to all my data). OneDrive is just convenient for the few changes I make each day. I will advise if moving those files and OneDrive behaving itself coincide :-)

I'm new to this Q&A and kind of stumbled onto it so I'm a complete newbie. When I reply to something like your Answer, should I be using Answer or Comment?

Thanks, Grimble.

Hello Grimble,

Thanks for the update. Since reinstalling did not help and unlinking only works temporarily, I would not repeat those steps.

When OneDrive is working, could you open its cloud icon > Settings > Account and tell me whether it lists only your Personal account or also a work or school account? Please also check whether your files are still visible in your Personal OneDrive on the web. You do not need to post your email address or a screenshot showing it.

That should help narrow down why the folder error keeps returning without risking another setup cycle.

Aaron,

Appreciate the effort. Unfortunately it didn't help. When I Sign In to OneDrive (depressingly often), I get a message that says 'This email address is used for both OneDrive and OneDrive for Business. Which would you like to sign in to first?' That concerns me as I'm not aware of having the latter anywhere on my PC (never responded with anything but Personal anywhere, even when first setting up Windows), nor do I have any other account. I always select 'Personal' then use the OneDrive folder it finds. I have searched for a 'OneDrive on SPO' folder in my OneDrive folder but never found one even when it appears to be working.

Bizarrely, when I try to Uninstall OneDrive, it asks to allow changes, seems to do something for a while, but doesn't remove the app at all!

The only thing that seems to work is to 'Unlink this PC', restart and go from there (which takes a couple of hours for OneDrive to process thousands of changes). Getting to settings to 'Unlink this PC' can be difficult as I keep getting the message about the missing folder and while that is showing, nothing else can be done with it. 'Try again' goes off for a bit then redisplays the message. 'Set up OneDrive' takes me through the usual (where I choose Personal etc.) and OneDrive reports 'Loading' or 'Signing in' depending where I look. It will keep on like this until I give up and Restart the computer again. Eventually, I can find OneDrive's settings to 'Unlink this PC'. A bit of a farrago and I haven't yet found the shortest way to do this. If you, or anybody else, has any advice, I'd much appreciate it. It might help to find out about 'this other account' while I'm at it. Thanks.

Note : I am not a Microsoft employee and the responses are based on experiences and best effort.

You have mentioned OneDrive on the SPO Folder, so this is likely to mean OneDrive for Business. You may need local admin access before you can do some of the steps.
While there are multiple ways of dealing with this by going into the registry, etc, they need a realtive intricate knowledge and understanding. This can be risky if you don't already know. The easier option is as below.

Step1 - Unisntall OneDrive. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive

Step 2 - Download and Install OneDrive and then login again.https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/onedrive/download

The consumer version is fine as the moment you try to use it with a work account, it will switch to the Business version.

If this works for you, please Mark is as an Accepted/Resolved, so that it can aid others as well

If some part has worked, please add additional notes, so that I(Community) can provide additional support based on additional information.