“Someone” deleted my OneDrive files

We are shifting to OneDrive for business at our company. But the OneDrive for business client is acting differently compared to the Windows sync client when copying files to a file server.

Using folder redirection or Windows synchronization you just add files to the synchronization folder – and that’s it. When connection is present it will start copying.

With OneDrive for business it’s different. When you want to synchronize files, you add it to the synchronization folder as normal. The client then creates a list of content to be copied to OneDrive for business, and the list is passed along to the backend system of OneDrive.

Having internet connection while adding a load of files to be synchronizing – and then removing the connection (or shutdown the computer) is dangerous.

Microsoft have backend timer jobs running to check if the files on the received list is uploaded properly. It also checks if the files is uploaded incorrectly or if there are files form the list that have not been synchronized.

Those files are removed by server, and this activity is shown as someone deleted the file. This is a part of the cleanup that is running as part of the OneDrive backend backup.

Since OneDrive is a bidirectional synchronization – a deletion on the web portal will also affect the computers folder when it is turned on.

And since the file was never copied to the destination area in OneDrive there is no backup.