January 30, 2023

How to Fix the OneDrive ‘Cloud Operation Was Unsuccessful’ Error in Windows 10 & 11

Reading Time: 4 minutes

OneDrive’s ‘cloud operation was unsuccessful’ error can lock you out of your files, but thankfully, it’s an easy fix.

OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage app included with Windows, and many users save their files to the cloud with it. However, some users have had issues accessing shared OneDrive files because of error 0x80070185. When users try to copy or download shared OneDrive files, they see this message: ‘Error 0x80070185: The cloud operation was unsuccessful.’

Users can’t copy or download shared files from OneDrive once error 0x80070185 appears. If you’re also experiencing this issue, here is how you can fix error 0x80070185 in Windows 10 and 11.

1. Log Out and Back Into OneDrive

First, try logging out and back into your OneDrive account. To do so, you’ll need to unlink your PC with your OneDrive account. This is how you can log out and sign back into OneDrive:

Right-click the OneDrive icon in the system tray.
Click the Help & Settings cog button.
Select Settings to bring up an Account tab.
Click the Unlink this PC option.
Select Unlink account to sign out.
If a sign-in window doesn’t automatically open, input OneDrive in the Windows search box and select to open it there.
Input your OneDrive email address (for your Microsoft account), and click the Sign in option.
Enter a password, and press the Sign in button.
Keep clicking Next to reach the last option on the OneDrive setup window.
Press the Open my OneDrive folder button.

2. Free Up Hard Drive Space

Error 0x80070185 can arise when there’s very little free space available on the local drive. As such, your PC’s hard drive may have insufficient space for the larger files in your OneDrive cloud storage.

First, check your PC’s drive storage space by launching File Explorer and clicking This PC. The C: drive icon there shows you how much free storage is available.

If your PC’s hard drive is full, or close to it, free up some storage space. You can make more space on your hard drive by uninstalling software, deleting unneeded user files, and erasing junk data. Our guide about how to free up storage space in Windows 11 includes numerous methods for making space on a drive.

3. Reset the OneDrive App

Corrupted OneDrive cache data is a potential cause for error 0x80070185 that you can address by resetting the app. Reset OneDrive with Run as follows:

Bring up the Power User shortcuts menu by pressing the Win + X keys.
Select Run to view that command dialog.
Type or paste the following command for resetting OneDrive into Run:
```
 %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\OneDrive.exe /reset 
```
Click OK to execute the reset command for OneDrive.
If the OneDrive icon doesn’t reappear after the reset, input this command into Run and click OK:
```
 %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe 
```

4. Sync OneDrive to Another Drive Location

Do you have another drive partition on your PC? If you do, try linking the OneDrive app with the alternative partition instead. You can sync OneDrive to a different drive location like this:

First, unlink the OneDrive app as outlined in steps one to five of this guide’s first potential resolution.
Then input the email address and password for the Microsoft account you utilize with the OneDrive app.
Press the Sign in button.
Click the Change location option.
Select an alternative drive partition on your PC to link OneDrive with.
Click Select Folder to confirm the chosen location.
Keep clicking Next a few times, and select the Open my OneDrive folder option.

5. Enable the ‘Always Keep on Device’ and ‘Free Up Space’ Options

Some OneDrive users have confirmed selecting to always keep affected files on the device, along with a ‘free up space’ option, can fix error 0x80070185. Selecting the ‘always keep on this device’ option makes a OneDrive file available offline.

This is how you can select those options for an affected OneDrive file:

Press Win + E to open File Explorer.
Click the arrow for your OneDrive storage on the left of Explorer.
Right-click the file affected by error 0x80070185 and select Always keep on this device.
Then right-click the same file again to select Free up space.
Repeat these steps for all files you can’t access because of error 0x80070185.

6. Turn Off Any Active Firewalls

Firewall blocks applied to OneDrive can sometimes cause the error 0x80070185 to occur. We recommend users temporarily turn off firewalls to see if they’re causing this issue. You can turn off the Windows Defender Firewall with the following steps:

Click the Search box or a magnifying glass icon on your Windows taskbar.
Input Windows Defender Firewall to find the applet.
Select the Windows Defender Firewall search result to view the applet in the Control Panel.
Click Turn Windows Defender Firewall on or off to access the settings.
Select the two Turn off Windows Defender Firewall network settings, and click OK to apply.
Return to OneDrive to see if the 0x80070185 error persists with the firewall off.

It’s also recommended to turn off any third-party firewalls installed. Some antivirus utilities also have firewalls. If you’ve installed any additional security software, select the option to disable its firewall if it has one.

Should this potential solution resolve error 0x80070185, set up a firewall exception for OneDrive. You can do that for the Windows firewall as instructed in our how to allow apps through Windows Defender piece. Users with third-party firewalls can allow OneDrive through them with the exclusion settings in their security apps.

7. Reinstall OneDrive

Reinstalling OneDrive is a solution that’s worked for some users. This will give you a completely fresh and up-to-date OneDrive app. These are the steps for uninstalling and reinstalling OneDrive:

Launch Run (see how to open Run for instructions) and input ms-settings:appsfeatures inside its Open box.
Select OK to view Apps & features in Settings.
If you’re using Windows 11’s Settings app, click OneDrive’s three-menu button and click Uninstall. You can select OneDrive and press Uninstall in Windows 10.
Select Uninstall for confirmation.
Open the OneDrive page on the Microsoft Store.
Click OneDrive’s Get in Store button.
Select Open Microsoft Store to view the OneDrive page in that app.
Click Get to reinstall OneDrive.

Access your OneDrive Files again

OneDrive’s error 0x80070185 is not always easy to fix. However, users have got error 0x80070185 resolved by applying the troubleshooting methods above. Hopefully, one of them will restore access to your affected OneDrive files as well.

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