Onedrive, The Cloud , Confused

[AjayK47]

I have today had a go at setting up onedrive for the first time on WIN 7 and using Office 365 which it came free with 1TB of storage.

Is it really correct that I therefore have to keep all my files twice, once where I have always put them and once in the onedrive folder?

Does this also mean that every time I create a new document I have to save it to two different locations?

If the data in the onedrive folder is "in The Cloud" why is it actually still a real file in the onedrive folder rather than just a file name whose contents are in The Cloud.

Sorry but very confused and any help appreciated.

 

[Ranger4]

If you wish to use One Drive you can & only have one copy of the file available. The advantage of One Drive is that you can access that file wherever you are, so you can access it from another computer, or someone else can access it if they have the necessary authority.
Having the file stored on your computer will provide more security, but if your computer has a major crash you may lose the file if you don't have a separate back up & One Drive can be used for this purpose.
If you want to have a back up copy then saving to two locations is a good idea, your computer for one & One Drive for the other.
One Drive is Microsoft's name for their version of the Cloud.

 

[paul1149]

In addition to what Ranger said:

Can I choose other folders besides the OneDrive folder to sync too?

You can't choose other folders to sync, but you can redirect certain folders such as your Desktop and folders in libraries to your OneDrive folder. You can also add subfolders from your OneDrive folder to libraries to make them easier to work with in File Explorer. For example, if you have a folder of vacation photos in OneDrive, you can include it in the Pictures library in Windows 7 or Windows 8. To learn how to do this, see Include folders in a library.
more...

OneDrive desktop app for Windows: FAQ - OneDrive Help

 

[gregrocker]

Believe me you want that hard copy on your machine of what's stored in the cloud.

A convenient way to root your User folders like Documents or more in the Cloud with OneDrive for storage and syncing to all devices is in tutorial under my pic below.

 

[AjayK47]

Thank you for your responses but I am still confused and maybe have not explained myself properly.

Having set up OneDrive on Windows 7 it has created a new folder called "OneDrive". My understanding is that any folders/files I want backed up to "The Cloud" have to be in this "OneDrive" folder which is on my C: drive. This surely means that I am duplicating every file that I want backed up to "The Cloud" twice on my hard drive? Once in the normal Documents location that I would always save to and once in the "OneDrive" folder. This seems a waste of hard drive space and requires additional effort and every new file I create I will have to remember to save to both the normal and the "OneDrive" location?

 

[gregrocker]

You can place the file in the OneDrive folder and then make a shortcut to it on the Desktop by right clicking the file to Create Shortcut. You can also do this with the Documents or any other User folder so that when a shortcut is created of a OneDrive file you just drag it to the Documents shortcut on the desktop and it will drop it in that folder.

Once again you can also root your User folders like Documents in the OneDrive Folder which will cause all of your Documents to be stored in the Cloud. If you do this on your other devices then these will also be sync'd with the latest version. Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with OneDrive

 

[AjayK47]

Once again you can also root your User folders like Documents in the OneDrive Folder which will cause all of your Documents to be stored in the Cloud. If you do this on your other devices then these will also be sync'd with the latest version. Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with OneDrive

Sorry but what do you mean by "You can root your user folders like Documents in the OneDrive Folder?"?

 

[gregrocker]

If you'll click on the blue link it provides a tutorial about how to do this.

 

[AjayK47]

I'm still a bit confused about my options here however I don't think I want to relocate the location of my User Folders to be within the Onedrive Folder due to the impact this could have on other programs running which only point to the default location of the User Folders.

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?

 

[ethan11james]

when you install one drive in PC folder create name with one drive in your Hard drive. sign in with your one drive account and save your file in PC one drive folder. When you connect from Internet files between cloud and PC automatically synchronized so your file safe in cloud. every time you no need to visit website or upload file. just put your files in local PC one drive folder

 

[GokAy]

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.

 

[GokAy]

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]

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?

 

[GokAy]

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

 

[gregrocker]

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

 

[AjayK47]

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?

 

[gregrocker]

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.

 

[GokAy]

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.

 

[AjayK47]

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?

 

[gregrocker]

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.