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
    2016-02-17T11:59:12+00:00

    Hi Shawn

    Is there anyway of setting this up for individual folders within the documents folder. I don't want all of my documents to be stored on onedrive, just the ones stored within 2 of the folders I have in my documents folder. However, when I try the method above, there's not location tab on the properties menu...

    Any help would be appreciated.

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-02-19T01:46:55+00:00

    The Location tab only shows up for folders that can be redirected, usually known as "shell folders" (things like Documents, Desktop, Favorites, Pictures, Appdata, etc.).  If you redirect Documents, everything under it goes to. That's not really related to OneDrive or Windows 10, that's just how redirects work (sometimes called symbolic links or symlinks for short).

    Basically if you don't want a folder to be synchronized in your online backup, you need to drag it somewhere that's not under the OneDrive folder.  The default settings make this pretty easy.  If you open up Explorer and look at the "This PC" folder, those are your local folders that aren't backed up anywhere.  Then your OneDrive is your stuff that is.  Just organize appropriately.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-11T08:31:09+00:00

    What would happen to the files that were already in C:\Users\Tony\Documents folder?

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