Want to change Onedrive destination folder for S20+ and have it upload only

[HLIND]

Hi there,

I'm after a bit of help with the S20+ camera upload/Onedrive interraction, please.

I've used Onedrive for several years for phone uploads on a number of devices and have a 'Camera Roll' folder set up which has 5 (older Samsung Galaxy) phone cameras leading into it.  This file is accessible to the 5 phones and also on 3 connected tablets and 4 laptops.

I got my new Galaxy S20+ last week and I'm having major problems with how it links to my Onedrive account. I can't seem to get it to upload to my usual 'first level' folder - it's dumped thousands of images (from my previous device) into a new folder called 'Samsung Gallery' which is a file within a file within a file and hasn't been set up by me. So my OneDrive has thousands of duplicate images in a new file. On top of this, every time I delete a photo from the phone it deletes it from the entire Onedrive across all connected devices.  

Lastly, the Onedrive sort in this Samsung Gallery isn't working as although I have 'newest' selected in the sort order, it ignores the dates and has puts all mp4 files first no matter how old before listing photos. It doesn't do this in my other Onedrive files, only the Samsung Gallery ones.

I need it to stop doing this.  I want the photos on 'upload only' not fully synced (as they need to be deleted from each device every few months but still available on Onedrive), and I also need to be able to tell the S20+ which folder it has to save to.

Does anyone have any ideas how to do any of this, please? The only way I can currently see is to do it manually, which I used to have to do 10 years ago but in 2020 that surely shouldn't be necessary. As a default setting it's pretty atrocious so I'm hoping for an override setting to make the upload function for for purpose. 

Any help anyone can give on this would be gratefully received as I'm beginning to regret getting this phone.
Thanks

EDIT:

DON'T do what I did and try to move the whole Camera file to your selected destination on another system (in my case a laptop.) All that will do is delete every image from your device. Yes it's still on Onedrive but no longer on the phone. Absolutely disgraceful development by Samsung. I'm beyond angry with them. A flagship phone should be better than this!

[nzmichaelsmith]

Unfortunately I'm having similar problems. A terrible update to the way things are uploaded. And now i have duplicate photos on OneDrive. I stayed deleting them from the hallway folder but then they disappeared from the phone! WTF

[paul-w]

Samsung, are you guys working on this problem? It is extremely annoying that the Onedrive sync is now being done to Samsung Gallery mixing up my existing Onedrive folder structure..... What are the options to restore this or to assign the correct folder yourself?

[daan944]

Yes this is terrible! I have the same on my S10.

Now I can't seem to fix it as OneDrive app on my S10 keeps pushing everything to the Samsung Gallery folder. 

Samsung, get the f out of my onedrive 😞

[daan944]

Managed to fix it. Refrain yourselves from throwing your Galaxy S into the trashcan and stopping your Office365/OneDrive subscription, you can fix it this way:

1: Unlink samsung account from onedrive and vice-versa. See here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/samsung-gallery-and-onedrive-99c4e77b-8e63-4ddc-aede-19f8...

2: Disable photo upload to OneDrive

3: Remove the Samsung Gallery folder from your OneDrive (move the contents somewhere safe first!)

4: Remove OneDrive account from Samsung device (Settings -> Accounts and Backup -> Manage Accounts)

5: Restart OneDrive app and re-enable syncing. You might need to take a photo to trigger sync again (or maybe I was being impatient, but this ordeal has cost me way too much time already)

done.

I did a phone reboot between step 3 and 4, if I recall correctly. But I don't think it's absolutely necessary.

[saltytoo]

Thank You so much for your time to figure this out. I should have known to setup photo sync to OneDrive by using OneDrive app than assume that Samsung "tight integration" would not be. 

[SRochford]

Many thanks for this! I think I've now got it all working but I nearly sent the phone back because the Samsung software made such a mess.

It wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the new phone had created a new Samsung Gallery folder and put new pictures in there but taking stuff which had already been sync'ed to OneDrive and copying it to a new folder is absolutely unforgivable.

I'd guess Samsung are going the way of some other companies (HP I mean you!) - they make excellent hardware but their software is just dreadful.

[Freedm]

I'm using the S22 which has a similar problem, except it does not copy all the images as described in the OP.  It only puts new images in the Samsung folder, so I guess that's an improvement.

[Freedm]

I followed these steps but when I re-enable syncing it tells me the Samsung folder is missing and gives me a button to go to OneDrive to re-create the folder.  Can I simply ignore this and assume they will upload to the Camera Uploads folder?  Or is there another step that I'm missing?  Cause I took a photo a few minutes ago and so far it hasn't uploaded to OneDrive.

UPDATE:  I guess I missed a step, but for the benefit of others, just to clarify the instructions by daan944, the very last thing you have to do is (on your phone) go back into Settings / Accounts and backup / Manage accounts  and then your OneDrive account should be listed there.  Tap on it and you should see a toggle switch to re-enable sync.  This worked for me.  Now my photos get uploaded into my "Camera Roll" folder again, just like they used to with my old phone.

[Freedm]

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