Forum Discussion
Include files in OneDrive sync without copying them
Hi,
This may be something already discussed and seems to be in the User Voice forums. I'd like to know if there is a way to include existing folders or files, similar to folder redirection, for files and folders scattered around the computer, so they can be backed up, but without copying them to the OneDrive sync folder. This is pretty fundamental, as when they are copied, they are duplicated, and document versioning issues again come to the fore.
This must be the most basic of features that doens't appear to be offered with the OneDrive client. I, and most of my customers, need this functionality and I don't see any way to enable it or to apply a workaround. If this has already been discussed, or if indeed I can achieve this, please let me know.
Appreciate the help!
Hi John.
This feature is not available natively at the moment, but luckily there is a very effective workaround (if you are using NTFS as the local file system).
You should simply create in the local sync folder a symbolic link to the folder that you want to sync (which is located elsewhere) and such folder will sync as if it were a regular subfolder of the local sync folder (it can even be selectively synced...).
You can create symbolic links using the command line or by a wonderful utility called Link Shell Extension.
Hope it helps...
Does selective sync help with this and then we will also have the On-Demand sync coming out for Windows 10?
Hi Cian,
I get what you're saying with Selective Sync, however that would apply, as I understand, to files already within the sync folder or files that or in the cloud already that I may or not want to sync.
My requirement is to sync files outwith the sync folder, and without having to move them into it in order to sync them.
On-demanc Sync is something new to me. I just did a quick search and seems to be related to working with cloud-based files on or offline, when required and is more a space-related them.
To sum up, what I'm looking for would allow my to sync a given file or folder without having to move it, or duplicate it, so that it ends up in the OneDrive Sync folder. I guess maybe it would be a right click option over the file in File Explorer to enable it's synchronization with OneDrive. Is this something we already have and maybe I need to enable?
Hi John.
This feature is not available natively at the moment, but luckily there is a very effective workaround (if you are using NTFS as the local file system).
You should simply create in the local sync folder a symbolic link to the folder that you want to sync (which is located elsewhere) and such folder will sync as if it were a regular subfolder of the local sync folder (it can even be selectively synced...).
You can create symbolic links using the command line or by a wonderful utility called Link Shell Extension.
Hope it helps...
My problem is similar I have a company phone and all pictures need to be uploaded automatically. I have the phone updating to my Onedrive personal account with camera roll without a problem, but I actually need them in my Onedrive business account. I've tried using a junction from the personal to business drive but it doesn't seem to work as others have stated. The only work around I see is to create a task that copies them over every say 10 minutes. Does anyone have a simpler solution?
- Well, this is definitely a feature that is out of the reach of the "big" guys (OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox).
I admit I'm pretty used to keep the real data inside the OneDrive (and also on the other two), and then I create a symbolic link wherever it's needed, even if it's a folder of the application which originally created. I really don't see a problem with it, I'd say you need the same level of self-organization to do that.
In fact, Google Drive offers something ALMOST like that: it offers you to pick folders scattered through your computer, but:
- it's one-way sync
- and they get tagged under your computer name (ok, you can copy and link them between your different computer tags, but it's a manual process), and will sync only from it
Anyway, original data on the cloud folder, symbolic link where the data is needed.
I guess Mega (from Mega.nz) has something like this in their client, can't remember... but then you must consider speed, reliability, so many other factors. There will always be a custom need for each of us that won't be supported. "As an end user I want to store my files on my local devices on the various disk drives available to me (be they internal or external drives) as I see fit and sync selected data to my OneDrive for Business Service as this will greatly enhance my productivity."
Pretty simple use case....
Why this cannot be fulfilled by Microsoft:
1. Available Disk Space on local devices
- Files On Demand frees up Local Disk Space but you lose Windows 10/File Explorer Indexing
- If I want to take advantage of searching my indexed files and folders, I have to turn off Files on Demand and then keep ALL of my files local on a single disk
- Even if you mark a file or folder "keep on my PC" it will not get indexed
- You can use the Web Browser to search OneDrive online, but it searches at the OneDrive level - you cannot initiate searches that search inside a specified sub-folder tree. SharePoint can only do Site Level searches for OneDrive (your OneDrive is a SharePoint Site).
- For example, you might expect 10 results from the Specific Folder but you get 100 from the OneDrive Site - very difficult to deal with so many results
- Microsoft has not enabled SharePoint Advanced Search which enables you to enter a partial path which you can do on regular SharePoint.
- With SSDs being the norm on PCs much of my data now sits on external disks.
- of my 256GB SSD, almost 100GB is used just to run WIndows
- Hibernation
- Swapfile
- Windows
- Program Files
- My Profile AppData
- Since Junction Points have issues the only solution is to add a 5 TB disk to the PC and move the local OneDrive Folder there. Place all of your files in that folder structure. But, you give up the speed of an SSD. But, you can do indexing and searching.
- Then setup Backup/Task Scheduler to make copies of files from the local OneDrive folder to your external media on a short, regular basis to mimic OneDrive Sync to the cloud and make local copies of your data just in case Microsoft decides to delete them.
- of my 256GB SSD, almost 100GB is used just to run WIndows
Revised use cases:
"As an end user I want to be to store my files on my local devices on single large internal local disk drive and sync selected data to my OneDrive for Business Folder as this will greatly enhance my productivity."
- Files On Demand frees up Local Disk Space but you lose Windows 10/File Explorer Indexing
