How to make my Desktop point to PC Desktop instead of OneDrive Desktop?

Hi Harry,

To revert the shell folder locations to default, open OneDrive and do the following:

Important: Before proceeding, copy the files in those special folders to another folder or external drive. Please don’t copy them anywhere under Desktop/Documents/Pictures. This is because disabling OneDrive backup for a folder erases the local copies of the files. Copying them to a different location beforehand will ensure you don’t need to download them again from the OneDrive cloud.

1. Right-click the OneDrive icon in the Notification area and click Settings.

2. Select the "Sync and Backup" tab, and click Manage Backup

3. In the Manage folder backup dialog, deselect "Desktop". Optionally, deselect other shell folders (e.g., Videos, Music, Documents, or Pictures) if you want.

4. Click "Save changes".

See also:

• Error “The folder can’t be moved here” Moving Documents/Pictures, Caused by OneDrive 

• Libraries are placed in onedrive folder instead of local folder - Microsoft Community

what if i disabled onedrive and didn't make copies of files before hand? Are they lost or is there somewhere they might be stored, because I can't find them.

Visit https://onedrive.live.com/ and login to your Live account. See if the files are there. If they're missing, look inside the Trash folder and recover them immediately.

Hi Harry,

To revert the shell folder locations to default, open OneDrive and do the following:

Important: Before proceeding, copy the files in those special folders to another folder or external drive. Please don’t copy them anywhere under Desktop/Documents/Pictures. This is because disabling OneDrive backup for a folder erases the local copies of the files. Copying them to a different location beforehand will ensure you don’t need to download them again from the OneDrive cloud.

 

1. Right-click the OneDrive icon in the Notification area and click Settings.

2. Select the "Sync and Backup" tab, and click Manage Backup

3. In the Manage folder backup dialog, deselect "Desktop". Optionally, deselect other shell folders (e.g., Videos, Music, Documents, or Pictures) if you want.

4. Click "Save changes".

See also:

• Error “The folder can’t be moved here” Moving Documents/Pictures, Caused by OneDrive 

• Libraries are placed in onedrive folder instead of local folder - Microsoft Community

OK, I've disabled OneDrive. I hate it and don't want it. What I do want is for items I save in my on-computer Desktop file to show up on my main computer desktop like they did when those items were in my OneDrive folder. I have copied all the desktop items from OneDrive to an external drive. When I copy them to "C://users/word/desktop" will they then show up on my main desktop like they used to when they were saved to One Drive? That's what I need to have happen.

Friendly Windows 11 enjoyer here, I ran into the same issue as you. Luckily the fix is extremely easy and you don't need to mess with any external backups or anything(it's ok if you did, as long as your files are saved).

1. Open your File Explorer and navigate to your account (C:\Users\<USERNAME>)

2. Right click on Desktop and navigate to Properties.

3. Navigate to the Location tab and you should see the path for your Desktop.

   1. If it is still linked to OneDrive, it should look something like "C:\Users\<USERNAME>\OneDrive\Desktop".

4. Simply remove the OneDrive sub-directory, or format the path to look like "C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Desktop" and click Apply.

5. Follow the prompts to move your files to the "New" Desktop location.

6. Done

You can pretty much follow this set of steps for anything that is still tied to C:\Users\<USERNAME>\OneDrive. Hope this helps!

Hi Ramesh,

I did all that but now in the file Explorer the Icons "Desktop" or "Documents" etc. fail to show me the real files and instead show a link to the "OneDrive - Desktop" .

I noticed also that this overview window of managed back up changed. In the attached screenshot you can see the unticked folders. (Screenshot)

My problems started with the latest win11 update and the following "let´s finnish setting your pc up"- screens that always decided to completly mess with my OneDrive Settings and upload everything. Luckily it happend on this rather empty laptop.

That this still happens, amazes me and makes me want to throw my three systems, dektop and two laptops at someones head. t I try to sync important stuff like studies and personal data with OneDrive inbetween them while leaving GameSaves in Documents or tb-large Recordings in Videos, etc. on their respective machines.

Thanks for your effort to help me. I've done everything you suggested, but when I save things I want to appear on my main desktop and save them to C:\users\USERNAME\Desktop, they still do not show up on my main desktop view (not sure what to call that but what I mean is what you see when you start your computer, where wallpaper would show) as they did when I saved them to C:\users\OneDrive\Desktop, so it's still not doing what I need to happen. Any idea what to do next? Rosemary

Hello Rosemary

I've just encountered this issue as well, I found a Youtube video that helped with the problem.

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hazReitn7GQ

Incase this link is ever removed or you don't want to watch it, here is how they say to do it in the video.

First Uninstall OneDrive from your machine.

1) Start > Type Control Panel > Programs/Uninstall a program

2) Navigate to your File Explorer folder and enter the OneDrive folder.

A) If you don't have a "Desktop" folder in your C:/Users/UserName/ -- create one.

3) Right click the folder that says "Desktop" > Select Properties.

4) Navigate to the "Location" tab > click "Set Defaults" it will bring up 2 prompts click yes after reading them and voila after some time all your icons/folders/apps should be transferred to the normal desktop. You can now use your normal "Desktop" instead of OneDrive.