Frequently Asked Questions

Sometimes, a version conflict will develop between local and cloud copies of files synced by OneDrive.
When this occurs, OneDrive will stop syncing this file to prevent potential data loss.  It will then wait for instruction on what to do about the sync conflict.

1. You should see an exclamation point on the OneDrive icon indicating a conflict issue.
2. If you click on the OneDrive icon in the system tray in Windows or the top status bar in Mac OS, you should see a banner at the top of the app window indicative of a sync conflict.
3. You should also be presented with a list of files in conflict with an option to resolve the conflict.
4. Click to resolve.  It will ask you if you want to save both copies or merge the files.
5. If you have time to review the differences, you can choose to merge the files.  If you are short on time, the best option is to save both copies.
6. When OneDrive saves both copies it will sync the cloud version of the file down to your device after renaming the local version and appending the hostname of your device to the end of the file name.
7. This will cause the local version to sync up to the cloud after being renamed.
8. You can then later review the contents of the local copy and determine if any data in it needs to be copied into the cloud version of the file or you can simply delete the file.

Note: You should probably give OneDrive at least a half an hour to replicate to the cloud first before deleting the alternate version so that you have the option of pulling a copy from versioning history in the cloud if needed later.