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
    2017-09-10T17:43:14+00:00

    I'd try it again.  Once done the shortcut icon inside the "This PC" folder should take you directly to wherever your Documents folder is defined as being.  And if that's inside the OneDrive folder, it should even gain the little sync overlay indicator, like this

    Also, don't be confused:  there is no synchronization between the old offline Documents folder and the OneDrive documents folder. The two are one and the same thing.  In fact, after you've set the location, the Documents folder under your user account (in c:\users) will no longer be a special folder (it won't have a Location tab in its properties anymore, it will just be a "dumb folder").  In fact, you can even just delete it to avoid confusion, so that you won't see a Documents folder inside your User folder. Like this:

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-10T10:26:32+00:00

    Just finished another go at things. It appears some of the files in the This PC My Documents have filenames > 256 characters. I did ask the copy operation to skip these, but at the end of the Change Location and copying process, I get a message saying there are some long filenames and the user cancelled the operation. Could this be the cause and if so, do I need to find all the long filenames (could be a lot) and fix them before doing this again?

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-10T09:59:35+00:00

    Just to add to the above, I have done the "change location" step three times now, each time copying across 50GB of information, getting a bit long...!

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