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I have a collection of folders that I want to be backed up to OneDrive. As files in these folders change - I want the new files to be uploaded/synced to OneDrive. As the size of these folders is significant, I do not want to physically copy the files to OneDrive folder. Nor do I have an option to install OneDrive folder to be a parent for all the folders that have to be backed up. Essentially I am looking for a basic functionality of any backup product where you just select the folders to backup. Unfortunately the current answers on SuperUser did not answer my question.

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  • Use a program to sync the changes to the OneDrive folder this results in the file being duplicated but drive space is cheap
    – Ramhound
    Feb 11, 2015 at 20:18
  • If that would be an option I wouldn't ask the question. It is not, so the question is - can it be done otherwise?
    – Ross
    Feb 11, 2015 at 20:50

2 Answers 2

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OneDrive is not backup software. It is meant to sync the contents to online. If you do not want re-point folders to inside OneDrive nor duplicate (copy files) to OneDrive, then you have no options. If you want to copy files to OneDrive, I recommend a free software called Bvckup (use last beta). You can mirror folders you want to be uploaded into OneDrive folder without intervention. This is what I do.

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  • I have 1TB on OneDrive that I don't use for anything else. I know it is not a backup software, but it seems to be a good place to store my backups anyway. I am not clear what you mean by "re-point". I can't have them to be physically inside OneDrive folder. Can I trick OneDrive into thinking they are inside?
    – Ross
    Feb 11, 2015 at 20:54
  • @Ross By re-point he means symlink. You copy the folders to the onedrive parent, then create a shortcut folder in their original location. Note that syncing does not equal backup. If you delete the contents of the local onedrive folder that will delete it from the cloud too. Dropbox has the same problem.
    – jiggunjer
    Jun 19, 2015 at 10:53
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After a couple of answers here I've realized that there's no easy solution with the native OneDrive client. I've found many WebDav and Robocopy suggestions - but it seems too complicated. I end up using Symbolic Link (mklink command) and it worked like a charm - this post was the most helpful.

Another option could have been a 3rd party clients that does a better job than OneDrive, provide the selection of folders that I am looking for and then just sync it to OneDrive through their API. However I was happy with mklink, so did not research it any further.

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