How to do a direct file transfer between Microsoft OneDrive Personal Accounts without code, software or third party services!

There’s a plethora of suggestions on how to do this and many paid services that offer to do it with measly monthly transfer limits. 

The Microsoft recommended way uses Flow but it can only copy files via a trigger which are new or somehow been modified. 

What if you want to move the lot in one go?

Downloading and uploading is painful and prone to error or loss – but there is a way to do it within OneDrive. Follow these steps!

The Warning – the files will completely disappear from the original account – be careful!

From Account

1. Open OneDrive in a new incognito window (or different browser)
2. Navigate to the Folder or File you wish to move. 
3. Click the SHARE icon at top of page
   1. – CHECK ‘ALLOW EDITING’
   2. Click ‘GET A LINK’
   3. Copy the link to your clipboard

To Account

1. Open the receiving OneDrive account in a non-incognito window (or different browser)
2. Paste the copied link from above into your browser address bar.
3. Click ‘ADD TO MY OneDrive’  at top of page.
4. It will warn you that it will share with a different account – click ‘CONTINUE’
5. Click ‘Add Folder’ to confirm the folder/file shown.
6. The shared folder contents is now visible in the second OneDrive account – Select ALL FILES (on the LIST view) by ticking the selection column in the table header. Every item should now have a blue tick. 
7. Click ‘Move To’ at top of page
8. Choose the new destination folder from this current OneDrive account – you may need to add a new folder if required.
9. Click MOVE
10. You will receive a warning that these files belong to someone else – click ‘MOVE ANYWAY’- this may take a few seconds for the button to be active. 
11. Wait a while and it will be done.

Help – I need the files back? 

The moved files will be in the recycle bin on the original OneDrive account for 30 days. 

Help – Limits?

There seems to be problems when moving a very large number of files (500-1000+). If you get ‘Promise failed without error handler’ error – you might be stuck. Transfers might not work now. Might need to refer to Microsoft.
– First step – try a page refresh – sometimes it will continue. 
– Try a different browser. A Chromium based browser seems to fail consistently after the first failure. Microsoft Edge seemed to recover better.

There appears to be throttling when moving a lot of very large files.