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
    2017-05-09T23:56:08+00:00

    After reading through 3 years worth of these posts I still have some confusion. Am I correct that files can be stored on my PC or in OneDrive, but not both? And this is because PC documents and OneDrive documents are really the same thing accessed from different points? If that is the case, what is syncing, as every document is being saved to either the hard drive or to OneDrive?

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-02-21T20:20:03+00:00

    Technically nothing stops you from setting your "OneDrive folder" to be the C:\ root folder, but I wouldn't recommend it.  As far as I know, no consumer file sync service offers what you're looking for.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-02-21T20:01:32+00:00

    Totally insane one has to move/redirect the Documents folder - or any folders you want to sync - over to the OneDrive folder in order to sync or backup files. Why not just allow users to see the entire hard drive folder structure and let them choose which folders/files to sync? Why make this so difficult on people - especially on IT people who now have to reconfigure standard user folders and/or worry about copying or migrating a OneDrive folder on local machine if they need to swap out a machine?

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