Microsoft won’t let you close OneDrive on Windows until you explain yourself

Microsoft now wants you to explain exactly why you’re attempting to close its OneDrive for Windows app before it allows you to do so. Neowin has spotted that the latest update to OneDrive now includes an annoying dialog box that asks you to select the reason why you’re closing the app every single time you attempt to close OneDrive from the taskbar.

Closing OneDrive is already buried away and not a simple task, with Microsoft hiding it under a “pause syncing” option when you right-click on OneDrive in the taskbar. But now, the quit option is grayed out until you select a reason for quitting OneDrive from a drop-down box. Here are the options:

You’ll need to select one to close OneDrive, but Microsoft hasn’t included a “go away and let me close the damn application” option, unfortunately.

Microsoft has been pushing OneDrive in Windows for years, with it taking over the Documents and Pictures libraries in Windows 11 by default to sync files to Microsoft’s cloud-powered storage. There are also a variety of prompts throughout Windows if you haven’t set up OneDrive, including one that appears when you change a Windows desktop wallpaper.

This new behavior follows years of Microsoft’s demanding Edge prompts that appear if you dare to download Chrome or change your default browser. Last month, Microsoft even thirstily started injecting a poll into the download page of Chrome asking why people were downloading an alternative browser. Now, Microsoft wants to know why you’re closing OneDrive.

What’s next? Hopefully, Microsoft won’t start injecting a poll at shutdown demanding to know why I’m turning my PC off for the day.

If you want to avoid this latest OneDrive nonsense, then feel free to open Task Manager, search for Microsoft OneDrive, and end that task the old-school way.

Screenshots by Tom Warren / The Verge