It says my onedrive is full but I emptied it.

Question

It says my onedrive is full but I emptied it.

Christian R 0

I have a notification saying that my one drive is full but the folder is empty, both on my computer and on the internet one drive files. There are no pictures uploaded, no music, the personal vault is empty and of course, the trash bin has been emptied. When I open it on my computer, it says there are 2kb used. My e-mails contain a total of 270MB. Also because it says it's full, I cannot answer to any of my e-mails.

User's image

I do believe the problem is on your side but support isn't answering me.

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Deleted

This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.

Comments have been turned off. Learn more

Answer 2

John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Independent Advisor

Hi, I'm John! I will help you with this.

After freeing space (or purchasing additional storage), it can take up to 24 to 48 hours for everything to fully update across your account. I’d recommend waiting that time and check again OneDrive, emails or try to send.

If the update is still pending after 24 hours, you can try unlinking and relinking your OneDrive account, or resetting it. "Unlink and re-link OneDrive" https://support.microsoft.com/office/unlink-and-re-link-onedrive-3c4680bf-cc36-4204-9ca5-e7b24cdd23ea

I really hope this information is helpful! Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Regards,

John J.D.

John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-10T21:13:35.16+00:00

Does the issue persist even after unlinking and relinking your OneDrive account using the steps I mentioned earlier?
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-10T21:38:32.88+00:00

The one drive problem itself is fixed but my outlook still says I'm using the full space even though one drive says it's all empty.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-10T22:33:13.4933333+00:00

I'm not too sure what's best to do. I'm guessing wait another 24h? I am grateful for your advice though
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-10T22:44:10.6533333+00:00

Yes, please wait for at least 24 hours for everything to fully update across your account.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-11T20:43:04.2633333+00:00

So it's been almost 72 hours since the start of my problem (I posted here the day after it happened because on the first day I tried to contact support) and the e-mail part is still not fixed. I tried to manually syncronize it a couple times and I even tried to unlink my mail from my PC and phone and log it back on and I still have the same problem sadly.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-11T20:53:13.9533333+00:00

Regarding the first screenshot, where it shows that it is still full, may I know where you are seeing this?
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-11T20:55:04.86+00:00

I see this at the bottom left of the outlook program. I also get this message.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-11T21:17:55.91+00:00
Try refreshing the Outlook account connection:

Close Outlook completely.

Open Control Panel.

Go to Mail.

Click Email Accounts.

Remove the account.

Add the account again.

This will force Outlook to reconnect and refresh the mailbox status.

Let me know how it goes.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-11T21:26:20.2033333+00:00

It's still not working. I also tried resetting my password in case it had to do with security but it didn't change anything sadly.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-11T22:14:08.2266667+00:00

This is just happening in Outlook Classic, right? When you go to https://outlook.live.com/mail does the issue persist?
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-11T22:53:05.0033333+00:00

It's the same with the browser outlook, yeah.

My outlook seems to be the new outlook too as I have a "Access to Outlook classic" button in the help section.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-11T22:59:27.7433333+00:00
Thank you for letting me know.

If you're using the new Outlook, you need to make sure everything is updated first:

Restart your PC:

This helps refresh any background Outlook or connection issues.

Reset the new Outlook app:

Press the Windows key and search for Outlook.

Right-click on it and select "App Settings".

Scroll down to the Terminate section and click "Terminate".

Then scroll down to the Reset section and click "Reset".

Wait a moment, then try opening the app again to see if it works.

If the issue persists, go back to the same settings, scroll down to the Reset section, and click on "Reset" (confirm the action if prompted).

Restart your PC and test.

Check for Windows updates:

Sometimes system updates include fixes for Outlook connectivity issues.

Go to Settings > Windows Update, then click Check for updates.

Try Outlook on the web:

You can also sign in at https://outlook.com to make sure your account itself is working fine.

Let me know how it goes.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-11T23:39:55.4033333+00:00

I had a windows update and I did it and restarted my pc. I then went to terminate, repair and reinitialize outlook, restarted my pc again and my phone then checked, it hadn't fixed the issue. I repeated the same steps on outlook and restarted both my pc and phone again and it's the same. I'm not sure if I should reinstall the applications or not.

The website outlook works but also says my storage is full. The weird thing is, when I check from my phone, it looks like outlook didn't understand that onedrive syncronized itself and is now working fine and has space.Screenshot_20260311_192830_Outlook.jpg

Is it possible that outlook might also need another 24 to 48 hours?
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-11T23:43:49.6366667+00:00

It might take a significant amount of time for Outlook for PC to reflect the updated storage.

About the steps I mentioned earlier about unlinking and relinking your OneDrive account, could you try that again and let me know how it goes? Thanks
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T00:47:47.42+00:00

Nothing's changed after unlinking and relinking my onedrive account.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-12T00:57:40.3733333+00:00

Also, could you provide me with a screenshot of your current Windows OS Build?

To do this, press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialog, type winver and press Enter.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T01:02:06.49+00:00
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-12T01:10:23.06+00:00

Your build is up-to-date.

If you haven’t already, uninstall and reinstall the Outlook for Windows app from the Microsoft Store.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T01:21:57.0666667+00:00

I just did and it didn't work. Then what I did was uninstall it from both my phone and pc, unlinked my onedrive account. Then I relinked my onedrive account, reinstalled outlook on both my phone and pc and the problem still persists.

Following everything we've done, the only solutions I can think of are waiting 2 more days... just in case, using the free trial for 365 and unsubscribing after a couple of days, or making another account and transfer over. But if I followed my logic I wouldn't have tried all we've tried so there might be other things left to try.

Again, I'm very thankful for your help, I would never make it this far without you.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-12T02:08:11.6833333+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to try all those steps and for explaining what you already did. That was very helpful.

Since your storage page shows less than 0.1 GB used, your account is clearly not actually full. At this point it looks more like a Microsoft account storage status issue on the server side, not something wrong with your devices.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T02:11:07.62+00:00

Should I try to make another account so I can deal with support for this account and have the other one as backup?
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-12T02:13:06.17+00:00

Having a backup account is not a bad idea, but I would not recommend moving everything yet, since your current account does not appear to actually be full.

From your screenshot, the storage shows less than 0.1 GB used out of 5 GB, so this really looks like a storage status error on the Microsoft account side.
Christian R 0 Reputation points

2026-03-12T02:15:09.7333333+00:00

So waiting while I make a backup account is the best idea.
John Jefferson Doyon 61,635 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-03-12T02:19:58.49+00:00

You can wait a bit to see if the storage status refreshes. Creating a backup account in the meantime is also fine if you need to continue sending emails.

Just keep in mind that OneDrive and Outlook storage are tied to the same Microsoft account storage quota. So if the system incorrectly thinks the storage is full, it can block sending emails even if your OneDrive appears empty.

From the screenshot you shared earlier, the account is using less than 0.1 GB out of 5 GB, so the storage is clearly not actually full. This suggests the issue is likely a temporary storage status sync issue on the account.

I would suggest waiting 24 - 48 hours to see if the storage status refreshes.

Share via

It says my onedrive is full but I emptied it.

2 answers

Your answer