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
    2016-09-01T05:11:32+00:00

    'Cmdr' K, followed your instructions to change location of C:/Users/<Name>/Documents to OneDrive/Documents. Every time the process will start and copy over all existing files, then terminate with error message "operation was cancelled by user". When I go back into Document properties and Location, it has not changed to OneDrive. Any help would be appreciated.

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-09-08T17:45:50+00:00

    Try this:  change the location, but when it asks if you want to move the files over, say no.  If that works, then you can just move the files directly yourself by drag-drop.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-23T20:04:47+00:00

    I had the opposite problem,  I do not want my documents in one drive, however a document folder was being created in one drive after I constantly deleted it.    By using the registry path noted in this string,  I was able to change all paths to \documents from \onedrive\documents  and the problem is gone.   Hope this helps someone else.

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