Download files and folders from OneDrive

Owned by Rasodin Ramuddin Hamzah
Last updated: Aug 23, 2023 by TP062945
4 min read

You can download files and folders from Microsoft OneDrive to your computer with just a few clicks.

Step 1: On your OneDrive in Microsoft 365 website, select the files or folders you want to download.
To download individual or multiple files, select each item by clicking the circle check box that appears. (The left image below shows items in List view, the right image shows items in Tiles or Photos view.) (You can also select several files at once by selecting one file, scrolling down the list, then hold down the Shift key while left-clicking the last item you want to select.)

 

Select All Files -

To select all files in a folder, click the circle to the left of the header row, or press CTRL + A on your keyboard.

To select a folder, rather than just its contents, you may need to go up or back a level to select the whole folder.






Step 2: In the top navigation, select Download. (You can also right-click the file, photo, or folder, and select Download.)

Usability Guidelines

The Download button may sometimes disappear if you refresh the web page while looking at a folder. To work around this, you can go up one level in the folder directory and come back, or close that tab in your browser and navigate to the folder again.If your browser prompts you, choose Save or Save As and browse to the location where you want to save the download. (Some browsers just start saving right away to a Downloads folder on your computer.)

If you need to free up space on your OneDrive, download your file or folder to a location outside of your OneDrive folders (see below). You can then delete the OneDrive copy of the file or folder to reduce your storage amount.

For more information, see Delete files or folders in OneDrive.

If you select multiple files or folders and then select Download, your browser will start downloading a .zip file containing all the files and folders you selected. If you're in a folder and you select Download without selecting any files or folders, your browser will begin downloading all contents of the folder.

  • You can't download files directly from the Shared view. You will need to open the file and save a copy in the location of your choice.

  • You can't download OneNote notebooks. If you download a folder that contains a OneNote notebook, the .zip file will contain an error message in the form of a .txt file.

  • The Download button may sometimes disappear if you refresh the web page while looking at a folder. To work around this, you can go up one level in the folder directory and come back, or close that tab in your browser and navigate to the folder again.

  • In OneDrive for work or school, you can't use Internet Explorer to download folders or multiple files. You can use Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome to download folders or multiple files.

  • Downloads are subject to the following limits: 250GB file size limit; total number of files limit: 10,000; folder size limit: 200 files.

  • Files or folders containing a hashtag (#) in the file or folder name can't be added to .zip files. 

Make files available offline in a OneDrive mobile app

On a mobile device, you can make files available offline, which is similar to downloading files. From the OneDrive app in iOS, Android, or Windows 10 phone, look for the Offline icon (

  for Android or iOS, or 

 for Windows mobile devices).

  1. In the OneDrive app, select the files you want to take offline (press and hold a file to select it).

  2. Select Keep offline.

Note: The OneDrive app doesn't let you make folders or OneNote notebooks available offline.

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