Everyone hates OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud app that steals then deletes all your files

4 min read Original article ↗

OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud-based storage service, and it's aggressively pushed on users of Windows. They want your files on their servers, and are willing to use dark patterns to get them there. But this is par for the course, and OneDrive goes further: it not only ingests the user's files, but dark patterns the user into deleting the files from their own computer. This becomes a serious problem when users panic after realizing what happened. Here's Jason Pargin explaining the failure mode clearly and concisely.

"At some point your computer will update to start using OneDrive, and at no point will you be given any kind of plain-language warning or opt-out, it will just do it. At some point you will notice that it is quietly uploading everything on your computer to Microsoft's servers. Some of you will only notice this because you're on a slow or metered internet connection … or because OneDrive is running out of space. … So you will look up how to turn off OneDrive Backup. Then you'll find out that everything on your computer is gone. Everything was deleted by Microsoft. And on your desktop, your clean desktop, will be one cheeky little icon that says "Where are my files?"

As Pargin points out, it's indistinguishable from a ransomware attack. And then you hit the other dark pattern: you can redownload your files, but if you then tell Microsoft to delete their copies of your files, it will delete them again from your computer. At this point, it's all gone; you're screwed.

"The only way to delete the files of their machine without deleting them off your machine is to go find a youtube tutorial walking through the detailed steps," Pargin says. "To make make OneDrive not do this requires looking it up. There is no intuitive way to do it. They intentionally bury the steps in menus and none of those options say in plain English what they do."

Microsoft boasts that 30% of its code is generated by LLMs. The CEO went on stage to insist we stop calling generative AI 'slop.' The company is famed for anti-competitive conduct that hurts users. So it's no wonder that its software breaks in destructive or seemingly malicious ways when people don't use it the Microsoft way. If you want control over your files (or simply like knowing where they are and be certain they still exist) use another operating system.

I got a Windows laptop not long ago just to play games with my kid and noticed that the old "don't give it an internet connection" trick didn't work; it insisted I log in. And it's such a mess: an operating system packed with ads, upsells and bloat. Something about Microsoft reminds me of oil companies in the southwest: risky environment, externalized costs, nauseating conditions, cunning alignments of liability and safety, no-one cares if it works so long as money is made.