Onedrive, The Cloud , Confused

I believe you can move only the folder that holds your Office files and create a Symbolic Link to that folder in their original location inside Users folder.

The steps would be:
1- Move the office files folder(say, folder1) to OneDrive sync folder.
2- open cmd, navigate to folder that used to hold folder1
3- mklink /d folder1 <OneDriveFolder> (i.e., mklink /d folder1 C:/SomeFolder/OneDrive/folder1)
The command will create a new folder link to the re-located folder1 in its old location.

If it doesn't work you can simly delete the link in the folder (looks like a folder shortcut) and move your folder back to its original location.

You can also use FreeFileSync to backup your files to another location on your computer. Once you set it, it takes 3 clicks - Open/Compare/Sync.

By the way, I don't have a OneDrive folder at all, I got the webpage version. Do you get the explorer folder with paid for versions?

AjayK47 said:

I accept therefore that I may need to keep two locations on my C: in sync with each other - that being my default User Folder location for Documents, Photos etc. and the same in the Onedrive folder.

I was wondering if there was an easy way to achieve this and I see Microsoft has a piece of software called "Sync Toy" which I could run manually or on a schedule to always make sure the contents of the Onedrive folder are the same as the files in the default User Folders.

Has anyone had any experience of this software and will it do what I require?

Anyone used "Sync Toy" and would it work to keep Onedrive folder in sync with local files in User Folders?

Not Sync Toy (no experience with it) but FreeFileSync has a Real-time Sync feature, also not used, you may try.

I have not found any symlink program that works correctly for OneDrive.

Remember that if you use SyncToys to sync any file to a copy in OneDrive folder, you'll have two of the same folders on the drive, unless you move OneDrive folder when you set it up to another drive. This may be a space consideration.

Otherwise SyncToys is very easy to set up to do a scheduled sync or use a trigger like Startup or Log On to sync a folder pair: Schedule SyncToy to Run Automatically With Task Scheduler in Windows 7

gregrocker said:

I have not found any symlink program that works correctly for OneDrive.

Are you saying that SyncToys will not work correctly with OneDrive when I run it to sync between my local User Files locations and the duplicate folders under the Onedrive folder?

I have installed it and all seemed to be Ok but now I'm worried that I am missing something and I will come across a problem further down the line?

No, Symlinks are symbolic links that hold a place in the OneDrive folder for synching purposes only. There have been several attempts at this over the years OneDrive was being developed but each has gone by the wayside. I have not tested the one which is proposed in Post 12.

I specifically said SyncToys works very well to sync the original folder with a copy you place in OneDrive folder, but that it still results in two separate folders taking up twice the space on the drive.

I would like to try the method I posted in post #11 but don't have any OneDrive folder in Explorer. Is it a paid-only feature (I have OneDrive webpage only at the moment)? If no, can you direct me to set-up one please?

@Greg: Did you mean post #11? I didn't propose anything on post #12.

gregrocker said:

No, Symlinks are symbolic links that hold a place in the OneDrive folder for synching purposes only. There have been several attempts at this over the years OneDrive was being developed but each has gone by the wayside. I have not tested the one which is proposed in Post 12.

I specifically said SyncToys works very well to sync the original folder with a copy you place in OneDrive folder, but that it still results in two separate folders taking up twice the space on the drive.

Thank you - I have accepted the fact that I need to have two copies of the Folders/Files on my local computer to be absolutely safe when using OneDrive. One in the default User Folder and one in duplicate folders within the OneDrive folder. This is the reason I need to use something like SyncToys to keep those two locations in sync with each other rather than having to remember to manually update each every time I do a save.

Hopefully I have now understood everything correctly but stand to be corrected if not.

I assume that when WIN 7 gets updated to WIN 10 everything will be a lot simpler with OneDrive?

If your assumption is based on the need to have a copy separate from the one in the OneDrive folder, then it is flawed because the OneDrive folder is a hard copy of the files on your PC which will not go away even if you disconnect from OneDrive - unless the files in OneDrive are accessed online or via another synced PC's to be altered or deleted. Then if deleted they will always be in the Recycle Bins on all synched PC's and in the master Recycle Bin in OneDrive online.

However this does not solve how to synch a file you want to remain in your Documents or other User folder location while still being synced. For this short of rooting the User folders in OneDrive (which syncs them all) SyncToys is a useful solution that can sync in either or both directions.