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
    2016-03-11T17:41:15+00:00

    When you link it in this way, the two folders aren't just copies of each other:  they literally are the same folder.  The file doesn't exist in both places, you just have two ways to reach it.  This is called a symbolic link (sometimes symlink).

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-11T17:30:19+00:00

    Actually (at least on my system running win10), the files are not moved, they are copied to the One Drive folder. All files that were in the "C:\Users*My Name*\Documents folder" at the time I confirmed that I wanted to move my folder are still there... for the most part these have become "redundant", but since I'm not sure what windows may or may not "need" or "use" after the One Drive is activated as default I just left them there. LOL.

    What changes is that the old documents folder is no longer the "go to" or "access from" point that most of your applications use... the One Drive folder has now become the default "My Documents". :j

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  3. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-03-11T14:26:08+00:00

    They'll be moved when you are prompted to "confirm you want to move your folder" in step #4.

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