- Microsoft offers an assistance article dealing with Windows performance problems.
- A tip is to deactivate OneDrive synchronization, because it “can slow down your PC”.
- It may be one of the biggest problems with the slow performance of the file explorer in Windows 11
Microsoft admitted that synchronization of files between your Windows 11 PC and OneDrive can slow down your system, while providing many tips to improve your computer performance.
Neowin pointed out that Microsoft’s assistance account on X has highlighted an item containing said performance advice for Windows 10 as well as Windows 11.
How to make your PC faster: Step 1: update it. Continue reading to discover other modifications that you can make: pic.twitter.com/olwt212ojpAugust 11, 2025
The advice is provided in order, so the first is the most important and potentially the most impactful, and the others follow, the suggestion linked to OneDrive arriving in seventh. (The others are mostly the standard rate: update everything – which is number one – Check the disk space, deactivate unnecessary applications, mitigate fanciful graphics in Windows, etc.).
Microsoft observes that OneDrive synchronization is enabled by default in Windows 11 (and 10) – mirroring your PC files to the Cloud storage service – to allow you to access your files from any device, wherever you are (as long as you are online). He also explains that these synchronized files in OneDrive also serve as backup.
However, Microsoft admits that the reverse of these advantages is that the process of synchronizing files from your computer to the cloud “can slow down your PC”, then gives you instructions on how to temporarily suspend OneDrive synchronization. In this way, if you encounter slowdown in performance, you can stop this synchronization and see if it solves these problems.
If you are curious, the way of suspending synchronization is to find the OneDrive icon in the system status bar of the task bar (to the far right) – it is the graphic of the cloud – right click on it, and under the cog parameters, you will see the option “Suspend synchronization”.
Analysis: Explore the causes of slowness
There have been many complaints concerning the extremely slow operation of the file explorer in Windows 11, something Microsoft recognized it, and it is also something that I myself experienced on my Windows 11 laptop. OneDrive could well be linked to this type of slowdowns in certain scenarios.
On my main PC, which is Windows 10, the file explorer works much faster. And in particular on my backup PC, which also has Windows 11 – and on which I decoupled OneDrive -, it also works perfectly.
Thus, if you are faced with slow performance when you work with files and folders on your desktop (file explorer), it is certainly worth suspending OneDrive synchronization to see if it helps.
However, it is not necessarily only the slowness of the file explorer, and the closure of OneDrive synchronization could improve performance in other areas of your PC-by performing other PC software or games, perhaps. As always, any impact of synchronization can be variable depending on the particular configuration of your PC, parameters of the system and the workload that OneDrive can undertake at a given time obviously has an impact on things.
You do not have to use OneDrive with Windows 11 or 10, even if Microsoft wishes for obvious reasons: if you plan to subscribe to cloud storage, the software giant wants you to choose its service (and do not hesitate to promote it).
You can however dissociate your OneDrive account from your PC, then uninstall the OneDrive application if you want to go further (that said, it can reappear via subsequent Windows 11 updates, or it is certainly a complaint that I have seen in the past).
Microsoft is right on the advantages of cloud synchronization for backup (and potentially access to files from other devices also), but don’t forget that you are not obliged to use OneDrive: there are other cloud storage providers.
In fact, there are other backup solutions. Just make sure you have one and always remember that storing your data in the cloud with any service can be a good idea in some respects, but that gives a certain power to a third party, you must therefore consider it as part of a global 3-2-1 backup strategy.
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