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Urgent Concern Regarding OneDrive Storage Transfer and Missing Usage

PYDP 0 Reputation points
2025-12-13T19:10:32.3333333+00:00

Dear OneDrive Technical Support Team,

I am writing to seek urgent assistance, as I am extremely stressed and concerned about my OneDrive data. I am a PhD student. For the past few years, the university provided 1 TB of OneDrive storage under my student account. Recently, the storage policy was changed, and my quota was reduced to 100 GB, which is not sufficient for my research data.

Due to this change, I subscribed to a personal OneDrive account with additional storage (100GB) and began transferring my files to avoid data loss. Yesterday, I moved approximately 60 GB of data from my university OneDrive account. I confirmed that the storage usage in the university account decreased accordingly.

I have checked several folders and files in my personal OneDrive account, and they appear to be present with no obvious missing files. However, I am very concerned because the storage usage in my personal OneDrive account has increased by only around 2 GB, which does not seem possible if approximately 60 GB of files were successfully transferred.

Could you please help me clarify:

Whether the files were fully and correctly transferred

Why the storage usage does not reflect the actual size of the transferred data

Whether there is any risk of hidden data loss or delayed syncing

These files are extremely important for my PhD research, and this situation is causing me significant anxiety.

I would greatly appreciate your urgent support and guidance on how to verify the integrity and completeness of my transferred data.

Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For education | MacOS
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  1. Teddie-D 16,370 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-12-14T03:12:30.85+00:00

    Hi @PYDP 

    Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum. 

    Simply seeing files in OneDrive does not guarantee that they were fully uploaded or intact. Several factors could affect this: 
    -Large files or many small files can sometimes fail to sync fully. 
    -OneDrive may skip certain files if they exceed size limits or contain unsupported characters. 
    -If the OneDrive client experienced errors during transfer, some files may be missing or corrupted. 

    To fully verify: 
    -Log in to OneDrive.com, open each major folder, and confirm the number of files. 
    -Compare file sizes locally vs OneDrive.com using “Details” pane. 
    -For critical files, open a few to confirm they are not corrupted.  

    Your personal OneDrive shows only around 2 GB used after transferring approximately 60 GB because: 

    -The sync client often uploads more slowly than copying between folders. Even if files appear in the cloud, they may still be pending upload, queued in the background, or exist as placeholders.  
    -Storage usage does not refresh instantly and can show a delay after large moves or deletions.

    There is some risk, especially immediately after a large transfer:
    -OneDrive may take hours to fully sync tens of gigabytes. 
    -Files with unsupported names, paths that are too long, or restricted types may not transfer. 
    -Files with the same name may be renamed or overwritten. 

    Recommendations to reduce risk: 
    -Check OneDrive’s sync status in the desktop client to ensure no errors. 
    -Use the OneDrive web interface to cross-check folder sizes and file counts. 
    -Manually compare source and destination folders for critical files.

    I hope this information is helpful.

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