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
    2018-02-13T05:07:57+00:00

    I will try this. Thc.

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-02-13T04:55:40+00:00

    I just want to make clear that at the core, you don't have to do anything in order to store your documents in OneDrive.  You can just open the OneDrive folder and drag-drop files into it to put them there, or choose OneDrive when you create and save new files.  It works just like a regular folder on your computer in every way.  It just happens to also constantly keep itself in-sync with the cloud copy as a backup.

    But if you want to, you can set your "Documents" folder on your computer to be stored inside OneDrive directly.  The only real advantage to doing this is that you won't have two separate document folders anymore.  Instead of:

    A)  C:\Users\skeene\Documents

       and

    B)  C:\Users\skeene\OneDrive\Documents

    ...setting this as described combines both those into one single folder.

    Here's the steps written out a bit more explicitly.  Just take it one step at a time and let me know how it goes:

    1. Open File Explorer (Windows Logo + E is the keyboard shortcut)
    2. Highlight the "OneDrive" section on the left side.  Then on the right, if there is not a "Documents" folder inside it yet, make one (right-click a blank spot and choose New > Folder and give it a name like "My Docs", "Documents" or whatever else you like).
    3. Go to the "This PC" section on the left navigation pane.
    4. Find "Documents" on the right side.  Right-click it and go to properties.
    5. On the Location tab, change it to the Documents folder you created that's inside your OneDrive folder.  For me this is c:\users\skeene\onedrive\documents
    6. Make sure the text there includes the folder name (you don't want this to end with "onedrive"), then click OK.  Confirm the one or two prompts it asks about if you are sure.

    Done.  Now your Documents folder is stored inside OneDrive.  Everything there is continuously kept in sync.  If you change a file, the same change happens to the file stored at onedrive.com (and also on any other computers that use OneDrive).

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-02-13T04:04:58+00:00

    Sorry, this is still confusing me.

    I want to backup my Microsoft Lumia 950 and my Lenovo Laptops Documents to One-Drive.

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