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. Anonymous
    2015-12-28T02:43:15+00:00

    Hi All,

    This is also my first time using this forum...

    I performed the steps as initially outlined here to sync my local documents folder to onedrive. Everything appeared to work correctly as far as moving my documents and all subfolders to onedrive.

    However, it does not continue to sync my local vs. onedrive files. If I create a new file such as a word doc it only saves it to onedrive and not locally... so it is not available offline.

    Did I miss a step here? Is there a way to make the files either/or onedrive/local?

    Thanks, John

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-07T02:06:08+00:00

    True, but there's always a failsafe: there's a version history so every time you edit a file, OneDrive makes a new copy every single time and let's you see the save-by-save versioning.  And if you outright delete the file entirely and that change syncs to the online, OneDrive has it's own recycle bin too.

    But your point is certainly valid, and OneDrive explicitly denounces itself as a backup service.  Still, with the versioning and built-in safety net, it's 'close enough' for the simplest of users.

    I suppose you could schedule a system image snapshot to be taken every X intervals and have the destination of that file be OneDrive, but that size would get huge fast.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-07T01:54:18+00:00

    Ok. But, I would have to be concerned with accidental erasure. If I set things up this way, any work I do in my documents I'm actually doing in the back-up. I don't want that. I want to Windows to back-up my documents daily (nightly) by copying them to the One Drive. Years ago, at work, we backed-up our servers overnight to a server farm. There has to be a way to use Windows Home in the same manner.

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