How to Reset OneDrive in Windows 11

The Microsoft OneDrive application is built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 and is tool that allows you to manage and synchronise your laptop or PC Files and folders with the cloud storage provided under your Microsoft 365 subscription.

Generally it’s a great tool and pretty stable however, if you use Microsoft OneDrive long enough at some point you may come across one of a few common niggles, for example:

  1. OneDrive stuck on Processing Changes.
  2. OneDrive says it’s up to date but new files aren’t syncing.
  3. OneDrive says Preparing to Download but doesn’t seem to move on.
  4. OneDrive has a Red Cross when yesterday everything was working fine.

There are probably more examples of issues but these are the ones that crop up occasionally on our IT Support Helpdesk.

 

A common cure for all things OneDrive related is just to carry out a OneDrive reset.

 

This process is pretty self-explanatory and seems to terminate the OneDrive application then reset or re synchronise the local files and folder index or catalogue with the cloud system and magically OneDrive works again!

 

I’ve done this numerous times in Windows 10 and today I was working on New Windows 11 laptop and ran into a OneDrive sync issue. Thinking nothing of it I carried out my normal fix which is to enter the following command at the run prompt :

 

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset > However this time it didn’t work and I was presented with the error:

 

Windows cannot find ‘C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe’ Make sure you’ve typed the name correctly, then try again.

 

Windows cannot find OneDrive.exe Error when trying to reset OneDrive in Windows 11

Windows cannot find OneDrive.exe Error when trying to reset OneDrive in Windows 11

After quick poke around I discovered that above command wasn’t working because in Windows 11 (Win 11) the OneDrive program onedrive.exe has been moved to another location.

 

So here’s how you reset Microsoft OneDrive Sync Client in Windows 11

Step 1:

Right click the Windows Start Button/Tile and select ‘Run’

 

Windows 11 Run Box

Windows 11 Run Box

Step 2:

Type the following command into the Open: dialogue box

C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.exe /reset

 

C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.exe /reset

C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.exe /reset

 

Press OK and you should see the OneDrive program pop up with the following message:

 

We’re resetting – go ahead and keep working on your files while we reset your files will save to your local disc and upload to OneDrive after the reset.

 

OneDrive Reset Windows 11

OneDrive Resetting Windows 11

Step 3:

 

After a while you should get the following message:

Reset Completed – Your OneDrive is as good as new.

 

OneDrive Reset Completed Windows 11

OneDrive Reset Completed Windows 11

 

And that’s it you are done!

 

I hope this helps others out there that were struggling to find out how to reset OneDrive on Windows 11 machine.