Google Drive – How to Decouple Files in ‘Computers’ and ‘My Drive’

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I moved some files and folders on my PC into a folder synced with Google Drive. My intention was that once they were uploaded I would move them to a non-synced folder on my Drive, thereby keeping the online backup and deleting the local copies.

It worked fine while I only did the above with files. (I had to "Add them to My Drive" before I could move them to a folder within GD, but it still worked as intended.) When I tried to do the same with some subfolders in the same shared folder, after adding them to My Drive and moving them to the non-synced destination folder, they still seem to be linked to the Computers/PC copies of the same folders. They appear in both My Drive and Computers, and when I delete them from one location the other is deleted too, even though in My Drive they are placed in a non-synced folder.

(I hope my phrasing makes sense, feel free to ask for clarification.)

Best Answer

  1. Select the file or folder (let's just say it's a folder for the steps below).
  2. View the details for that folder by clicking the (i) icon on the top right, then displaying the "Details".
  3. There is an entry showing the "Location" of the folder. The folder is in more than one place.
  4. Click the cross to the right of the parent folder that you do not want it to be in (choose the parent folder which is in your computer backup). It will be removed from that parent folder.
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