Microsoft OneDrive is a cloud-based file storage and syncing service designed to back up and make your files accessible across multiple devices. Windows 11 includes OneDrive by default and may begin syncing files automatically, such as those stored in your Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders.
However, OneDrive can interfere with how the Artisan® and Historian™ desktop software stores and accesses files. If your projects, art kits, or cabinets are saved to OneDrive, you may experience performance issues or data corruption.
This article will help you:
- Understand the impact OneDrive can have on your Artisan or Historian content.
- Provide instructions to move content out of OneDrive if it’s already syncing.
- Walk through how to adjust OneDrive settings to prevent it from saving your FOREVER® software files.
- Optional steps for unlinking or uninstalling OneDrive completely from your computer.
🛑 Before You Begin
We highly recommend starting with the following resource to ensure all your important Artisan and/or Historian content is at least backed up to an external hard drive for easier recovery (even if you're not moving to a new computer): Checklist for backing up Artisan® & Historian™ content
🔍 Why OneDrive Can Be a Problem for FOREVER Software
OneDrive works by syncing your files to the cloud. For programs like Artisan and Historian that rely on direct file paths and full file access, cloud-based syncing can corrupt project or cabinet files and make that content inaccessible or incomplete.
OneDrive's Impact on Artisan & Historian
If your FOREVER files have been saved to OneDrive, you may encounter the following issues:
- ⚠️ Artisan Projects: Pages appear with gray boxes or missing images when opened. Warnings of missing pages, or errors that prevent the project from opening entirely.
- ❔ Digital Art Kits: Show question marks on the thumbnail images, making them unusable in a project.
- 🚫 Historian Cabinets: Failure to open due to missing or corrupt internal files.
Unfortunately, once this interruption/corruption shows, most of the time it will persist even after moving the content due to how OneDrive synced or altered the files. If this happens, you will need to start over with that specific content that was corrupted — such as recreate project's pages, reconnect art kits, reimport memories, etc.
Checking OneDrive to Keep FOREVER Files Local
We’re not advising against OneDrive for general personal use, but we strongly recommend keeping FOREVER-associated content out of OneDrive. This includes Artisan Projects, Digital Art Kits, and Historian Cabinets.
You can easiest find OneDrive to confirm if it's active on your computer by opening your File Explorer. OneDrive is typically listed on the left navigation panel at the top of your folders, denoted by the cloud icon (as shown below). The location will also look like C:\Users\[Your Username]\OneDrive\... if you choose to right-click and show Properties on files you suspect of being stored in OneDrive.
💡 Tip: If you wish to continue using OneDrive for other purposes, consider saving your FOREVER content to an external hard drive, or a folder on your PC saved outside of OneDrive. This will prevent syncing conflicts while preserving your use of cloud services for everything else.
What Can Be Backed Up
Some FOREVER-associated software items you can safely store on OneDrive includes:
- Backups of Personal Art Kits you have created
- Art kit's backup Activation Codes list
- Exported project pages saved in a photo format (JPG, PNG, TIF) or as a document (PDF)
- Exported cabinet memories to folders on the computer
📌 Note: The acceptable items mentioned above are all backup copies — nothing your software actively uses should be trying to read from or save to OneDrive.
💻 Moving Your Content Off OneDrive
If you've discovered your Artisan and Historian content is saving to OneDrive, the first step will be to copy the files to a local location from the cloud-based saving.
Backing Up to an External Hard Drive
To do this we suggest copying your projects and art kits (for Artisan) or cabinet (for Historian) to an external hard drive. We find this most helpful since sometimes a computer's internal hard drive may not have enough space to hold all your content, so using a larger external hard drive ensures plenty of space for everything to copy over.
If you have not already made a backup copy, you can follow this guide: Checklist for backing up Artisan® & Historian™ content
Backing Up to your Local Computer
Alternatively, you can manually navigate to a spot on your computer through the File Explorer to ensure it is a local location. One location this applies to is C:\Users\Public\Public Documents since this area is meant for all logins on the computer, so OneDrive cannot reach this spot.
After you have moved your content, you can either adjust your OneDrive settings to ignore certain folders, or completely unlink or uninstall OneDrive from your computer. The choice is yours!
📂 Adjust Current OneDrive Settings
If you are setting up a new computer or simply want to continue using OneDrive for other reasons. You can follow these steps to prevent OneDrive from automatically backing up key folders used by FOREVER software:
- Click the OneDrive cloud icon in your Windows taskbar (usually found in the bottom-right corner).
- Select the gear icon > Settings.
- Navigate to the Sync and Backup tab.
- Under "Back up important PC folders to OneDrive", click Manage Backup.
- Toggle OFF the following folders, depending on where you save your content:
- Documents (used as the default location for both Artisan projects and Personal Art Kits)
- Pictures (if you save Historian content there)
- Desktop (if you save Artisan projects there) - When you stop backing up a folder, you will be prompted with a pop-up
>Stop backup (recommended for FOREVER software): Immediately stops saving new files from the specified folder into OneDrive. All current content already backed up to OneDrive will stay there in case you need to download it.
>Continue backup: Makes no changes and will continue to save new files from the specified folder into OneDrive. - Now that the specified folder(s) are no longer being backed up to OneDrive, you can safely add your Artisan and/or Historian files to these areas and reconnect them to their applicable softwares.
🔗Unlinking or Uninstalling OneDrive
If you prefer not to use OneDrive at all on your computer, there is a way to change the computer's settings to keep it from auto-syncing. First make sure your content is already copied to another location prior to doing either of these options.
After your content is copied from OneDrive, choose to do one of the following with the help of Microsoft Support:
- Unlink OneDrive (removes sync but keeps app installed)
- Uninstall OneDrive (removes the app completely)
You can access files stored on OneDrive anytime via onedrive.live.com. However, because OneDrive cannot natively save content from your FOREVER software, any synced Artisan and Historian files may already be corrupted or inaccessible.