Using One Drive to automatically back up My Documents folder

Anonymous
2014-05-28T20:37:52+00:00

Hello 

I would like to automatically sync the My Documents folder to One Drive. What is the best way of achieving this ?  The online information on OIneDRive does not make this clear 

Tony

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2014-05-29T03:22:52+00:00

Perhaps the easiest way is to set the Documents folder to be saved inside your OneDrive folder.

  1. If you don't already have one there, create a folder named "Documents" inside your OneDrive folder.
  2. Right-click the original Documents folder (not the one created in step 1), and choose Properties
  3. On the Location tab, click Move, and choose the Documents folder you created in step 1.
  4. Confirm that you want to move your Documents folder.

You'll still see a Documents folder inside your C:\Users\Tony folder, but it's actually become a redirect -- anything put there will actually be inside OneDrive (both on your hard drive and, of course, synced up to OneDrive cloud).  You can even do this for your Desktop folder and other special shell folders that have a location tab on their properties.

Windows 8's Internet Explorer already syncs your bookmarks, but if you have a PC using 7 or older, this is also a great way to sync your bookmarks (Favorites).

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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2014-05-30T21:58:38+00:00

The "Restore Default Location" button won't be available, but you will certainly be able to put Documents back to the proper location if you decide to do so later.  That warning is actually a bit of a stretch.

It's possible (although incredibly unlikely), that you would have to go set the Documents folder path correct in the registry, but even that is actually pretty quick and easy if you needed to.

In the registry, this value controls which folder is considered the "documents" folder.  It's under HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

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  1. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-06-13T14:37:34+00:00

    I don't want my files saved only to OneDrive.  I want OneDrive to mirror the files on my computer.

    Good news:  The way you want is the default way.  And for many years it was even the only way it could be done (files exist on your computer's hard drive, and just mirror into the OneDrive online storage).

    And today that hasn't gone away. But some people have so many files that they can't all fit on their local computer, so now there's also a 2nd option where the files are 'only in OneDrive'.  But again: that's new and optional.  So if you want your files to stay available locally on your real hard drive and just mirrored up to the Onedrive service, you can go turn off this option:

    You can even set it differently on every computer.  So my laptop with a 3TB hard drive has this option off so all my OneDrive files stay on that computer.  But my tiny 32GB tablet that can't hold all my files, I keep that option on so that the files appear to be there, but are "online online".

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-06-13T03:50:49+00:00

    Glad to help. I even still do that today.

    Back in January I was out of town for a week. But being a typical nerd, you may not be surprised to know that I sometimes install software from questionable sources, or even trustworthy sources but beta and test software that has serious bugs and problems. 

    At my hotel I totally crashed my PC. But no worry, I ran a quick factory reset. That took about 15 minutes, plus another 15 or so to install office and my favorite web browser and such. But before I could get a pizza delivered, my computer was back and running fine, nice and clean, and all my files were still in OneDrive like they never left. I don't know if I would consider myself average, but I have about 300 gigabytes of files in my OneDrive. About 12,000 of those files are pictures, another 500 or videos, and pretty much the rest is documents dating all the way back to Junior High School. So while it is technically not a backup service, it handles the job for me as if it were.

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  3. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2014-06-02T14:23:54+00:00

    I can understand.  Yes indeed, you will be able to go back to the location tab and put the Documents folder back under "This PC" (or any other location on the PC that you want).

    As for the syncing.  Yes it's just like you describe.  If you open a file up from your Documents folder, it will sync automatically to OneDrive.com, as well as the reverse (changes you make from any other computer or OneDrive.com will sync to your Documents folder as well).

    I actually use the setup that you are considering, I long ago put my Documents folder into OneDrive (then called SkyDrive) and love it... I wish it was the default setting so that everyone could enjoy cloud backup and synchronization of their files).

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