How to Stop OneDrive from Syncing? [9 Ways Available]

Why Need to Stop OneDrive from Syncing?

Sometimes, OneDrive keeps syncing your files as cloud backup but with slow speed; it seems never finish. Sometimes, you may choose the wrong items to sync to OneDrive. Or, OneDrive has been automatically syncing files that you don’t want to. No matter which situation you are in, you might need to turn off OneDrive syncing.

How to Disable OneDrive Syncing?

The following solutions can be applied to all kinds of devices like desktop, laptop, notebook, pad and cellphone. Also, they are suitable for Windows, Linux, Mac, Android as well as iOS. Yet, the following will take personal OneDrive free App in Windows 10 for example.

Method 1. Pause OneDrive from Syncing

If you want to temporarily and quickly suspend OneDrive’s work, rely on its Pause feature to do so. Click on its taskbar icon, click "More (three dots)" in the pop-up window and click "Pause syncing". You can select how long to pause the process, 2 hours, 8 hours or 24 hours.

Method 2. Quit OneDrive from Syncing

If you want to directly stop OneDrive from syncing, quitting it out is your choice. Just select "Quit OneDrive" in above more pop-up menu. Then, OneDrive will be closed and all running tasks will be stopped.

Method 3. Sign out/Unlink This PC

Cutting off the connection between this computer and OneDrive is also a way to halt OneDrive from syncing to your PC. Choose "Settings" in above menu, in the Account tab of the pop-up window, and click "Unlink this PC" and then unlink the account from the PC.

Method 4. Turn off automatically sync a folder

If you want to prevent OneDrive from auto syncing photos, videos, screenshots or certain folders like Desktop, Documents or Pictures, just change some settings.

1. In "Auto Save" tab, uncheck "Automatically save photos and videos to OneDrive whenever I connect a camera, phone, or other device to my PC" and "Automatically save screenshots I capture to OneDrive" to discontinue photo, videos and screenshot auto sync.

2. Click on "Update folders". Then, click "Stop protecting" under the folder which you want to cancel automatic protection. (If you haven’t protected a folder, there won’t be a "Stop protecting" option under it.)

Method 5. Clear OneDrive Folder

Another way to stop OneDrive from syncing is to get rid of the syncing source. Besides the source files excluded in above Method 4, there is a common source folder – local OneDrive folder. All files in it will be synced to online cloud. Thus, removing the flies that you don’t want to sync out from the OneDrive folder will block them from been syncing. If you don’t want any files go to OneDrive, just clear this OneDrive folder and make it empty.

To find the OneDrive folder, you can look into the left menu in Windows explorer. Or, click OneDrive icon on system tray and click "Open folder" to open it.

Method 6. Disable Network Connection

Indirectly, to stop OneDrive from uploading or downloading, just cut off the network connection of the device. Without the Network connection, none file transfer task could be carried out.

Method 7. Uninstall OneDrive

Or, use the stupid way to uninstall OneDrive to stop it from syncing. Don’t worry, this won’t delete the data on your OneDrive cloud. When the current syncing is disappeared, you can reinstall OneDrive.

Method 8. Hide OneDrive

In some versions of Windows operating systems, OneDrive is built in and can’t be uninstalled. Yet, you can hide it to stop OneDrive from syncing. There are some preparations to do before hiding OneDrive. You should cut off the connection between online OneDrive cloud and local storage built by OneDrive App.
1. Open Microsoft OneDrive settings window.
2. In the default Account tab, click "Choose folders". In the next pop-up window, check and uncheck "Make all files available". (The first check is to make sure all below items are checked so that the next uncheck will deselect all items.)

3. In Settings tab, uncheck “Let me use OneDrive to fetch any of my files on this PC”.

4. In Auto Save tab, uncheck "Automatically save photos and videos to OneDrive whenever I connect a camera, phone, or other device to my PC" and "Automatically save screenshots I capture to OneDrive". Click "Update folder" button, in the pop-up window, "Stop protecting" Desktop, Pictures as well as Documents folder.
5. Click "OK" to save changes.
6. Open settings window again, in Account tab, click "Unlink this PC" to cut off the connection between this computer and OneDrive program. (Close the application window after unlinking.

Next, follow steps below to hide OneDrive.

1. In Windows file explorer, right-click on OneDrive and select "Properties".
2. In the pop-up OneDrive Properties window, under General tab, check "Hidden".
3. Click "OK" to save and exit.

Finally, quit OneDrive from its system tray icon to stop OneDrive from syncing.

Method 9. Stop OneDrive from Automatic Startup

Just uncheck "Start OneDrive automatically when I sign in to Windows" in Settings tab.

Using MultCloud to Sync to OneDrive

If you have to stop OneDrive from syncing for it has encountered some problems and it's not available, you could also rely on other software to help you sync files to OneDrive, such as MultCloud, a FREE multiple cloud storage manager based on the web page. Let's see how it works.

Step 1. Create one MultCloud account.

Step 2. Add OneDrive to MultCloud.

After adding OneDrive account to MultCloud, you could upload files from local drive to OneDrive directly. Or you cloud also remote upload to OneDrive from URL by using "Upload File" feature of MultCloud.

Besides, you can manage files in OneDrive like create, delete, download, rename, copy, cut, paste, share, etc.

Moreover, you are able to sync files directly from one OneDrive to another without downloading and re-uploading by using "Cloud Sync".