Deleted OneDrive on Mac: Desktop & Documents Folder Missing with no online backup because of sync problems
I’d been having trouble syncing my data from my Mac with OneDrive for a while, so I deleted OneDrive from Finder because I was getting the message ‘The OneDrive app can’t be found’ (Screenshot) anyway, so I thought there was no longer a connection.
After that, I no longer had access to the ‘Desktop’ and ‘Documents’ folders, both of which were being synchronised (or should have been synchronised); I received a message stating that the folder could not be found. (‘The operation cannot be completed because the original item for “Desktop” cannot be found’ same one as in this post)
I then checked the user directory; neither folder was there (Screenshot).
As the sync hadn’t been working for several months, I couldn’t redownload the data and therefore thought I might regain access to the folders if I logged back into the OneDrive app. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. I now have two OneDrive shortcuts in the sidebar (Screenshot)
- one contains a few folders that I had as local copies on my Mac when the sync was still working (these were still there even when access to Desktop and Documents was no longer possible)
- and a new shortcut, which now contains the online content, including a folder called Desktop (which is now out of date)
My user directory now looks like this; clicking on ‘Desktop’ takes me to the OneDrive Desktop folder, not to the (deleted?) Desktop folder that was on my Mac before deleting OneDrive (Screenshot).
The files aren't in the Trash, is there any way to restore the Desktop and Documents folders? Or to access them if they were just hidden? I'm actually a Windows user and don't really know what options are available on a Mac; perhaps someone could help me out. I'd be grateful for any suggestions.