Microsoft to stop sending cloud-deleted OneDrive files to local Recycle Bin

Starting in May 2026, files deleted from the OneDrive cloud will bypass the Windows Recycle Bin and macOS Trash to improve sync performance.

Microsoft has announced that from next month, files deleted from your OneDrive cloud will no longer appear in the local Recycle Bin or Trash. To recover a file, you will now need to grab it from the OneDrive or SharePoint web recycle bin. This change won’t affect local deletes.

The Redmond giant said that it is making this change to improve the OneDrive sync performance and make file recovery more predictable. After the change, when a file is available locally and is deleted from the cloud interface, it will no longer appear in the Recycle Bin on Windows or the Trash on macOS; it will just be gone from the local system.

Sync performance for users with large file libraries will improve as a result. Delete operations will be faster, and restores will be simpler and more predictable with a single authoritative copy in the appropriate web recycle bin (via OneDrive or SharePoint).

This change will begin rolling out to Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, and DoD tenants in early May, with a complete rollout expected by late May. It will affect all OneDrive users on Windows and macOS, and admins cannot opt out.

While admins don’t need to take action for this change to take effect, Microsoft does recommend they inform users that cloud-deleted locally available files must be restored from the web recycle bin on OneDrive or SharePoint, not the local Recycle Bin or Trash. If you have any internal documentation referencing local recovery for cloud-deleted files, it is recommended that you update this, too.

You can learn more about this major change by visiting the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and reading the contents of Message ID MC1269861.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.

Posted Monday 6 April 2026 at 6:59 am AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of March) 1,297

RIP Matrix