Fast Fixes Microsoft Onedrive
Sync photos from tablet to PC, fix ‘Processing’ loop and access your PC remotely
Photo folders won’t fully synchronise Folders and subfolders might be a great way to catalogue your photos for faster access, but if you keep your digital photos in several levels of subfolders you could be preventing Onedrive from synchronising them properly.
This is because Onedrive struggles syncing photos whose file-location paths contain more than 255 characters. This includes everything from the drive letter to the name of the photo, for example C:\users\<username>\Pictures\2016\august\summer Holiday\ Family\by the pool.jpg.
To check the number of characters in a file-location path, open your Pictures folder in Explorer, navigate to and select a photo within a subfolder that won’t sync and click the address bar to highlight the file-location path (see screenshot above). Right-click the text and select Copy. Open a Word document and paste the copied text, then check the number of characters using Word Count (Ctrl+shift+g). If the count exceeds 255 characters, shorten the names of the subfolders and the file itself.
File-sync stuck in endless ‘Processing’ loop
If the Onedrive icon in your taskbar’s notification area (you may have to click on the up arrow to display it) constantly shows a refresh symbol and a ‘Processing changes’ message when you click it (see screenshot above), you should reset Onedrive to rectify the problem.
Press Windows key+r to open the Run command box, then type %localappdata%\microsoft\onedrive\ onedrive.exe /reset and click OK. The Onedrive icon in the notification area will disappear, then reappear in a few minutes. If it doesn’t reappear, return to the Run command box, type %localappdata%\microsoft\onedrive\ onedrive.exe and press Enter to force Onedrive to re-open. Files created on my phone and tablet don’t sync to my PC Being able to access your Onedrive account via your PC, tablet and phone is very handy, but you may find that documents and photos saved to Onedrive from your phone or tablet fail to appear in your PC’S Onedrive folder. If this happens it’s because you haven’t set your PC to synchronise every file you save to your Onedrive account.
To fix this, right-click the Onedrive icon in your PC’S notification area. Click settings, Account, then the ‘Choose folders’ button. Next, tick the box next to ‘Sync all files and folders in my Onedrive’, then click OK. Alternatively, you may want only certain files and folders to be stored in the cloud (perhaps to save storage space on your PC). If so, leave the ‘Sync all files…’ box unticked and leave only those folders ticked that you want to sync (see screenshot above right). Double-click a folder to tick or untick subfolders within it.
Can’t find older files or folders
Onedrive (previously called Skydrive) has been upgraded several times since it launched in 2007 and whenever this happened users accounts were updated as well. If you’re a longtime Onedrive/ Skydrive user, you may have older accounts hidden on your PC that contain files you thought were lost. Press Windows key+r to open the Run command box and type %userprofile%. In the window that appears, right-click the empty space and select ‘Sort by’, then ‘Date modified’. Look for a folder called something like Onedrive(1), Onedrive. old or Skydrive (it will be listed below the Onedrive folder you currently use, meaning it’s older). If you see an older Onedrive folder, check it for photos and documents you thought you’d lost.
Can’t remotely access my PC’S files via Onedrive
Onedrive lets you access your homebased PC’S folders remotely (including those you haven’t synced to Onedrive) by logging into your account at https:// onedrive.live.com. If you can’t access your PC’S files, it could be down to Onedrive’s default settings. To fix this, right-click the Onedrive icon in your notifications area, then click Settings. Click the Settings tab, then tick ‘Let me use Onedrive to fetch any of my files on this PC’. Return to your Onedrive account and click PCS in the left-hand panel, then the name of your PC to access files on it. Bear in mind, this only works if your home PC is switched on.