I Want My OneDrive Files

I Want My OneDrive Files: a reader asked…

Recently, I purchased a new HP laptop and connected that to my Microsoft 365 Account and OneDrive. While this works fine, I would like to migrate/copy all my files/folders to my HP SSD and have viewed several “help” videos, including those at Microsoft, and I remain flummoxed about how this is — or can be — done. On my old desktop this worked fine, but it seems that all my personal files are only ‘in the cloud’ on OneDrive. I would prefer the files to be on my computer with a backup in the cloud. Any insight?

OneDrive’s default setup is to copy your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders (and all the sub-folders and files inside each of those locations) up to the cloud in your online OneDrive.

Also, when OneDrive is setup on a laptop, by default it sets up to “save hard drive space”, which is usually constrained on laptops.

So, it only shows a thumbnail of the files in those locations – that’s a shortcut to the actual file in the cloud. You can tell this by looking at File Explorer – the view of your files and folders will have a column called Status and that column shows an icon. Which icon shows reflects the status of the file:

1. If there’s a blue cloud outline icon, that means the actual file is in the cloud, and you’re looking at a shortcut to the file – you must be connected to the internet in order to open it. When you double-click on that file, it downloads the file to your computer and opens it. When you’ve finished working on the file and have saved it, the saved file is copied back up to the cloud, overwriting the old file version there.
2. If there’s a green circle with a checkmark, the file is stored on your computer and kept in sync with the copy stored in the cloud.
3. If there are two blue arrows circling, that means the file is being synchronized with the cloud copy and/or the copy on your computer. It will change to either of the above two icons when the synchronization is done, depending on the settings for that file.

You can change the default behavior, which is fine if you have a large SSD in the laptop and aren’t constrained in hard drive space. Here’s how:

1. Open File Explorer. On the left-side you should see shortcuts to your personal folders.
2. Right-click on the Desktop icon. A context-sensitive menu appears.
3.  Midway down that menu you’ll see two linked entries: “Always keep on this device” and “Free up space”. Left-click the “Always keep on this device” menu option to keep all your desktop files on your computer. A copy will remain in the cloud, and any changes you make to the file will be synchronized between your computer and the cloud. On the menu you’ll see a checkmark for one or the other of these menu items when right-clicking on a folder or file.

Repeat the above for your Documents folder and then your Pictures folder. Now all those files will be on your hard drive as well as in the cloud, and the OneDrive app will keep them synchronized for any changes you make.

For many folks with laptops, they have some available space, but not enough for all their personal files. In this case, rather than setting the “Always keep on this device” at the folder level, you can do the same thing for individual files. You can do this one by one, or select multiple files in File Explorer (the right-side) and right-click the selected files to get the menu where you can specify whether you want to keep the files on your hard drive or save them only to the cloud.

I did come up with an alternative method and wrote an article about it: https://positek.net/ms-onedrive-tip/. In that article I explain how you can relocate your personal folders from their default locations (such as C:/Users/[your user account]/Desktop) to a location inside of your OneDrive folder (such as C:/Users/[your user account]/OneDrive/Desktop). You can do this for all six of your personal folders (Desktop Documents Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos), so all your personal folders and files are backed up onto OneDrive.

This should be done when initially setting up OneDrive. If you already have OneDrive set up, you’ll want to disconnect OneDrive from your computer, create the six folders in your OneDrive folder, and then reconnect OneDrive to your computer.

One caveat to this alternative: You can’t store a cloud-based folder or file inside another cloud-based folder. If you use Apple’s iCloud applet and/or iTunes, those are cloud-based file storage apps and your Pictures and Music folders (with the Apple content) can’t be stored in OneDrive, they’re already in the cloud in your Apple iCloud account. If you have any other file storage method you’re using (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, etc.), those folders can’t be inside of OneDrive either.

Microsoft OneDrive is a handy way to avoid the work of backing up your files, and your MS365 subscription gives you a huge 1 terabyte of storage space – likely more than your laptop’s storage capacity. So be sure to watch how much you use the “Always keep on this device” option to avoid problems.