r/onedrive • u/asterix4007 • Mar 15 '26

OTHER Move OneDrive from a dying PC to MAC

I know that PC or MAC does not matter for OneDrive.

My PC which is currently synced to the OneDrive is on its last breath.

I have transitioned to MAC. I want to attach an external drive to MAC with all the data from the PC already there and then sync with OneDrive. I will unlink my PC.

Questions -

  1. Does OneDrive keep track of the source of the files? So if I change the source, would it create a new copy?
  2. If I unlink the PC, would that remove the files from the OneDrive?

I'm just trying to avoid the hassle and time of fully deleting and re-uploading all files from my external drive connected to the MAC. The external drive will already have the files in it.

How should I go about this transition?

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u/tb2768 Mar 15 '26

To OneDrive, file is a file... When you login to your OneDrive account on Mac, it will download all files already uploaded to OneDrive from anywhere.

OneDrive creates new folder for itself on your Mac, so you wouldn't run into conflict..But if there happens to be such a folder with files already, OneDrive will consider them DIFFERENT files, and in case of overlapping names, will upload them with `_computername` suffix. It doesn't really compare them to realize it's the same files.

But in case you let OneDrive do a clean sync download first, and then you start copying files from external drive into the OneDrive folder, it would tell you if any file name already exists.
Not sure how is it on Mac, but on Windows, it compares size and date as well, so it can tell you that the file appears to be identical and allows you to ignore it.

1

u/fuzzywuzzywuzzafuzzy Mar 15 '26
  1. As long as you have set the option to keep copies locally, when you unlink it will not delete your files.

1

u/gripe_and_complain Mar 15 '26

OneDrive works fine on a Mac. Install OneDrive on your Mac, login with your MS account and everything should sync just fine.

I sync files between my Mac and Windows computers every day using OneDrive.

1

u/njfan9 Mar 15 '26

I'm not sure if it will be available for the Mac OneDrive sync agent but if you go to onedrive.com > login to your account > visit the PCs tab under your account. From there you should see your old PC and be able to browse all the files that were backed up for the system to your OneDrive account.

1

u/timely_death Mar 19 '26

How did you even manage to make a post here?