Ha ha!
Fixed: After installing the Windows update released on and after January 13, 2026, some applications became unresponsive or encountered unexpected errors when opening files from or saving files to cloud-based storage, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In certain Outlook configurations that store PST files on OneDrive, Outlook may hang and fail to reopen unless the process is terminated or the system is restarted. Users may also see missing sent Items or previously downloaded emails being re‑downloaded.
store PST files on OneDrive
That just sounds like a horrible idea regardless.
I had that idea once. You are right, it was horrible. I learned a lot about myself that year.
It does, but onedrive has a tendency to hijack your user folders, moving them to the cloud and deleting them from your computer unless you opt out (I imagine the idea is that this will exceed the free capacity and you’ll be forced to pay for more space to be able to access your files, a good old ransom racket), so you might think you had your PST in your documents folder, but it’s actually on the cloud, being crawled all over by copilot…
OneDrive doesn’t hold files hostage. It’s shitty and misleading, plenty of dark patterns, but it won’t let a user go over their storage limit. It’ll just stop syncing/uploading new files. And try and trick the user into paying for storage, yes. But it doesn’t hold files hostage unless a user pays for more storage, and then decides to stop without downloading everything first.
All cloud storage providers do that.
The average user isn’t going to have a PST file at all, forget about where it’s stored. Outlook stores mailboxes as .OST files in the appdata folder of the user, and those are not synced by OneDrive. To get a .PST you have to intentionally use one of a few different ways to export mail in bulk from the .OST file.
Use linux ,dumbo
I do, but it’s fun to point and laugh
