Guide

How to move your files from OneDrive to Dropbox

Neither company offers a button that connects a personal OneDrive to a personal Dropbox. So the move is done either by hand through your computer, or by a service that copies directly between the two clouds. Both are covered here — along with the one thing that stops most people before they start.

Updated September 2026 · Applies to personal OneDrive and personal Dropbox (Basic, Plus, Family)

Check this first: does it even fit?

A free Dropbox Basic account holds 2 GB. That is not a typo, and it is far smaller than what most people have in OneDrive — a Microsoft 365 subscription alone comes with 1 TB. Before you plan anything, open Dropbox and look at your available space. If your OneDrive holds more than 2 GB, you will need a paid Dropbox plan, or you'll be moving only a selected part of your files.

Then, pick your method

Method 1 — Download and re-upload through the browser

1. Open onedrive.live.com, tick the folders you want, click Download. OneDrive packs them into a zip file.
2. Unzip on your computer.
3. Open dropbox.com → Upload → Folder, pick the unzipped folder. Keep the browser tab open until it finishes.

Method 2 — Desktop apps, side by side

1. Open the OneDrive folder on your computer. Most files there are online-only placeholders, not real files — they look normal but weigh nothing. Right-click the folder → Always keep on this device and wait until everything has actually downloaded. Check your free disk space first.
2. Install the Dropbox desktop app and sign in to the account you're moving to.
3. Copy folders from the OneDrive folder into the Dropbox folder. Dropbox uploads them in the background.

The part that catches people

If you skip the "always keep on this device" step, you will copy empty placeholders instead of files, and you won't notice until much later. This is the single most common way a OneDrive move goes wrong.

Personal Vault is a locked area inside OneDrive. Its contents don't sync like normal files and stay invisible while locked. Unlock it and move those files deliberately, or they will quietly stay behind.

Your computer needs to stay on and awake for the whole copy. On a laptop, plug it in and turn off sleep.

What the desktop-app method leaves behind

• Shared with you — files someone else owns aren't yours to move. Ask the owner to share again in Dropbox, or copy their contents into your own OneDrive first.
• Sharing links — every OneDrive link you'd sent stops working. You'll create new ones in Dropbox.
• Version history — OneDrive keeps older versions of a file; only the current version is copied.
• Office co-authoring history and comments — the document arrives, the conversation around it doesn't.
• Photo albums and tags — OneDrive's albums are a view, not folders. The photos move; the albums don't.

Method 3 — Let a service do it

A transfer service connects to both accounts and copies directly between them. Your computer isn't involved, so it can be off — and placeholders are never an issue, because the files are read from OneDrive's servers, not from your disk. This is what DriveFerry does: you say where the files are and where they should go, and you get a report at the end showing what arrived and what needs your attention.

Before you delete anything from OneDrive

Open a few files in Dropbox and confirm they really opened — not just that the name is there. Compare folder sizes on both sides. Then wait a week before deleting anything.