On my Windows 11 PCs, there is a OneDrive folder in my home directory. I keep some files in OneDrive for convenience as it comes with Windows and thus requires installing no separate applications to sync. I have an always-on Windows VM on my home server that runs the OneDrive application and syncs up the OneDrive folder with Syncthing. I prefer to use Syncthing on my main desktop and laptop to keep the OneDrive directory synced up as I’m already running it to sync other files.

After turning off OneDrive, clicking on the folder in Windows Explorer starts the OneDrive application and brings up its login dialog which is rather annoying. At this point, it should just be a plain old folder named OneDrive.

I’m sure there is something in the registry making this happen but I was hoping to break this without actually breaking anything. It turns out that you rename the OneDrive folder, Windows detects this and updates some internal magic. So the trick is to rename the OneDrive folder and then delete it. Then, just recreate the original OneDrive folder. It won’t have any magic associated with it anymore, it will just be a plain old folder. Clicking on it will no longer start the OneDrive application.