The main reaction of N-glycosylation of proteins is the transfer 'en bloc' of the oligosaccharide moieties of lipid intermediates to an asparagine residue of the nascent protein. For the past 15 years, a few laboratories including ours have shown that the process was accompanied by the release of oligosaccharide-phosphates and of neutral oligosaccharides possessing one GlcNAc (OS-Gn(1)) or two GlcNAc (OS-Gn(2)) at the reducing end. The aim of this review is to gather the evidence for the different origins of these soluble oligomannosides, to examine their subcellular location and intracellular trafficking. Furthermore, using Brefeldin A we demonstrated that this released oligomannoside material could be the substrate for the Golgi glycosidases and glycosyltransferases. Indeed, released oligomannoside never reach the Golgi vesicles either because they are directly produced in the cytosol as has been demonstrated for oligosaccharide-phosphates and for neutral oligosaccharides possessing one GlcNAc at the reducing end or because they are actively transported out of the rough endoplasmic reticulum to the cytosol. One of the functions of oligomannoside trafficking between rough endoplasmic reticulum, cytosol and lysosomes could be to prevent these oligosaccharides for competing with glycosylation in the Golgi.