Download All Data from OneDrive: Business or Personal Account

Want to download all the data from OneDrive? You are at the right place. We will explore three distinct routes that administrators can take that will help them get OneDrive data out of the cloud and back under their control. Traditionally, exporting a data file can often be complicated for users, especially in terms of handling information on a large volume. Plenty of users find difficulty with how to download data from OneDrive or how to download the whole OneDrive, since doing it manually involves plenty of restrictions. That is why taking assistance from a system-driven utility is a brilliant choice to guarantee complete security, precision, and alignment of the converted data. On top of that, we have a process that everyday users with personal accounts can attempt to achieve a similar result. Let us first examine if there are any restrictions placed by Microsoft on downloading the data present in its OneDrive service.

Who can Download All Data from OneDrive for Every User in the Organization?

When you store your data on the OneDrive Storage service, Microsoft gives you complete control over who gets access to that data. Earlier, we saw how many challenges arise when we try to give OneDrive access to another user account. Although we were successful in our attempt, it showed us how seriously Microsoft takes its data distribution, and downloading is a form of data distribution. For personal accounts, downloading data is not that big of a deal. Unless it is some file that was shared with you and the owner has put some restrictions. However, in a Microsoft 365 Business/Enterprise subscription pack, admins have the option to disable file downloads. Done through Conditional Access policies within Microsoft Entra ID Most often, this feature is used. So, if you are a user in a business environment trying to download every file from the OneDrive account, chances are you won’t be able to.

Use M365 Admin Center to Download All Data from OneDrive

Follow these steps:

1. Go to and log in to the M365 admin center.
2. On your left-hand side, you will see a light gray pane. From there, expand Users and choose Active users from the drop-down.
3. Now select any user that has the OneDrive license and the data you wish to download.
4. In the User Properties window, switch to the OneDrive tab.
5. There should be a “Get access to files” heading with a Create link button; click on it.
6. Once you have the link open it.
7. Put a check mark next to each folder and download it
8. Repeat for every user.

How Administrators Can Use PowerShell to Save Every User’s OneDrive?

So, if in your latest OneDrive usage report you saw some users too close to the storage limit, you may want to download some data and clear it from the cloud. PowerShell serves as an excellent alternative to the one-at-a-time Admin Center GUI. However, it is a more complex method, and you should only attempt it if you understand the cmdlets you are using or have worked with PowerShell before.

1. Install the Graph PowerShell module.
2. Register an Azure AD app with Files.Read.All and User.Read.All permissions get their ID, Tenant ID, and secret. Grant admin consent.
3. Run Connect-MgGraph with your app details.
4. Get all users (Get-MgUser -All).
5. Loop through each user:
6. Get their OneDrive drive (Get-MgUserDefaultDrive).
7. Recursively find all files within that drive. (This is the tricky part to keep minimal, as true recursion is complex.) A basic script might only grab the root files.
8. For each file, download its content (Get-MgDriveItemContent).

If building a custom script wasn’t hard enough, users have reported that downloading data in this manner hard-stucks at around a 20 GB limit. This may be due to API limits or some other reason entirely. If you have access to eDiscovery, then Purview may help here.

What are the Steps in Microsoft’s eDiscovery Mechanism for OneDrive Data?

The eDiscovery process comes under the compliance part that any sufficiently sized organization has to follow. Microsoft has a dedicated mechanism called the Purview portal that is linked to every service, including OneDrive. eDiscovery is particularly useful for legal proceedings, compliance audits, or when needing to search and export data across multiple locations, including OneDrive. This method is part of Microsoft Purview and requires specific permissions.

1. Log in to the new Microsoft Purview portal.
2. Follow Solutions > eDiscovery > select standard.
3. Create a new case.
4. Inside this case, go to Searches and press + New search.
5. Name the search(mandatory); you can choose to skip the description.
6. Select the location to search, ensuring to include the specific user’s OneDrive account. You can add the URL for the OneDrive site if known. Otherwise, include all SharePoint data(OneDrive comes under SharePoint).

How Do Personal OneDrive Users Download All Data?

It’s quite simple; all you have to do is log in to the OneWeb app and select every folder/file you want to download.

1. A download button will appear in the top toolbar. Click on it
2. All your files will be saved locally. Note that OneDrive will not download in the actual file format, but will zip the contents and download that compressed file.
3. You will have to unzip and extract all the contents.

An alternative to downloading is to set up a sync between your cloud OneDrive and your desktop system. It can be done with the help of the official app. If it’s not already on your machine, just download and log in with your M365 account. Then wait for the sync to finish, all the on-cloud data will be available on your device, and all the files from your device. No need to hit download explicitly. One major advantage is that you can use the OneDrive app across various devices, and all of that data will keep on syncing first with the cloud, then with your computer. Note that if you have multiple OneDrive accounts, you won’t be able to add them to this app; it only supports one personal and one work/school account.

Steps to Automate the Download All Data from OneDrive Task

The advanced Export Tool is an expert-grade utility that is designed to make the conversion procedure of downloading all OneDrive data completely efficient. While using manual techniques to export files can consume a considerable amount of users’ time, effort, and productivity, this tool immediately saves such issues, especially for users to are required to save Office 365 files locally. IT administrators can fast-track the process by employing a professional solution. The SysTools Microsoft 365 Export tool can pull every bit of user data kept in OneDrive cloud system and safely put it in admin-defined destinations. Free Download Purchase Now Here is how you can use this tool on any Windows operating system.

1. Open the tool on your system. Choose Microsoft 365 as the source and select File system as the destination. Uncheck every workload except OneDrive, and apply a date filter if you feel the need for it. Then, press Next.
2. The source screen is where you validate the admin credentials. The best thing is that the tool does not even need the account passwords, just the admin ID and Application ID. Validate, wait for the green signal, and press Next.
3. On the destination screen, browse for the parent folder where you will download all the data from the OneDrive for Business account of every user in your organization. Validate and click Next.
4. A mapping screen appears, which is where you can either fetch the users directly, import a premade custom CSV list, or download a template, edit it, and upload it back into the tool.
5. Now you have arrived at the same user preview screen, where you can see the entire list. You can search, select, filter, prioritize, etc. Once done, validate your decision and start the export.

Features of the Expert Recommended Tool

• Allows users to easily export all data from OneDrive, including videos, documents, images, and shared data, and download all data from OneDrive without making any sort of errors.
• Another benefit is that the professional tool supports both Personal and Business OneDrive to deal with both efficiently, enabling users to download all data from OneDrive.
• Users can take advantage of many advanced features, such as selecting numerous types of saving formats, whether it is a standard file, PST, or ZIP. The tool exports all data from OneDrive in numerous formats to make it more flexible and convenient for users to access it.
• In times of urgency, when data from numerous business accounts needs to be exported on an immediate basis, professionals can batch export their data files and have the resultant file in just a matter of a few clicks, making it suitable for large organizations.
• With this export tool, users do not need to require to download the whole OneDrive, is also lets them filter the necessary data based on their requirements, like file type, date, or users.

Conclusion

Now, there should be no problem when you try to download all data from OneDrive for Business or a personal account. Here, we gave step-by-step instructions on the many different methods for the admins, including the admin center, PowerShell commands, the eDiscovery mechanism in the Purview portal, and self-start downloads. However, as these methods are largely manual, admins may face problems in using them. As an alternative, we also include a professional export solution purpose-built to be used in the M365 cloud environment.

Frequently Asked Questions