When I restarted my computer, I got a sync error (for MS One Drive) that said the shortcut file name was too long. I shortened the name of the file, and now I my all of my files are missing that were in that folder. Where might they have gone? Here is a

Hi @Caroline E. Brown, 

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

As I understand it, you're experiencing a OneDrive sync issue. Specifically, after you shortened the name of the file to fix an error, your files went missing. Afterward, a similar error message reappeared asking you to shorten the name again, is that correct? 

To help me understand your specific situation better, could you please confirm if you're using OneDrive for Business (a work account)? 

If in this case, to help us pinpoint the issue and find your files, please check the following: 

• When the error message appears, could you try clicking "Open location" to see where those files are currently located? 
• More importantly, please check your OneDrive web portal to see if the files still exist there.   

Case 1: If the files are still on the OneDrive website 

If the files are still available on the web, you can fix this by: 

Pausing sync: Right-click the OneDrive icon in your taskbar and select Pause syncing. 

Shortening the path: On the OneDrive website, find and move the files with the long paths. Right-click the file > Move to > select a new folder with a shorter path. 

Resuming sync: After moving the files, you can resume syncing to allow OneDrive to update to the new location and resolve the error. 

Case 2: If the files are not on the OneDrive website 

If you have checked the website and the files are not there, you should take these steps: 

Check the Recycle Bin: First, check the Recycle Bin on the OneDrive website. 

Check the second-stage Recycle Bin: If the files are not in the main Recycle Bin, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the "second-stage recycle bin" to see if they can be restored from there. 

If the files are still not found after these steps, I recommend you contact your organization's IT admin. They can raise a support ticket with M365 Support. The support engineers there have higher permissions and resources to check the backend logs directly, which may help in restoring the files. 

Reference: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn 

If you’re unsure who the IT Admin is within your account's organization, you can find guidance on locating them here: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support 

If I've misunderstood your situation, I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide more details so I have the opportunity to offer further support. I'm very eager to assist you.

Looking forward to your reply!  

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

Perhaps you renamed the shortcut to the folder, rather than renaming the actual folder? Are you syncing your Documents folder at Manage Backup? If not, you may have two Documents folders.