Why am I getting the "You now have two copies of a file" error from OneDrive for Windows?

You will get the "You now have two copies of a file" error from OneDrive for Windows, if it failed to merge changes you made on a file locally with changes you made online to the same file.

Follow this tutorial, you may get the "You now have two copies of a file" error.

1. Sign in to the online OneDrive with a browser, and create a new Word document with one paragraph.

2. Run OneDrive for Windows on your local computer, and you should see a Word document called Document1.docx in your local OneDrive folder: \users\fyicenter\Document1.docx.

3. Open Document1.docx with Office Word locally, and the second paragraph.

4. Go back to the browser, and you may not see second paragraph showing up, if OneDrive failed to sync the changes.

5. Make more changes in the online document with the browser.

6. Come back to the local Word windows, make more changes, and save the document.

While making changes locally and online to the same document, OneDrive for Windows may fail to synchronize changes and raise the following error:

You now have two copies of a file

We couldn't merge the changes in "Document1-FYICENTER.docs", 
so we created another of it. Click to browse both files.

The picture below shows you the "You now have two copies of a file" error raised by OneDrive for Windows, when it failed to merge changes made both locally and online to the same file.

⇒ Managing Word Documents

⇐ Add Second Account to OneDrive for Windows

⇑ Microsoft OneDrive for Windows

⇑⇑ Office 365 - Frequently Asked Questions