How to Sync Local Folders to OneDrive? Follow Instructions Here!

Why Sync Local Folders to OneDrive

As one of the most popular cloud storage platforms, Microsoft OneDrive is a good option on the market. You can sync or back up your documents, folders, photos, etc. to OneDrive so that you can access data anywhere across different devices.

If you add the local folders to the OneDrive folder or change/delete the folder in OneDrive, these folders will be added, changed, or deleted on the OneDrive website and vice versa.

In general, syncing local folders to OneDrive ensures good data availability, keeps the backup copy of files & folders, and easily shares with others using the Share feature.

So, how to sync a local folder to OneDrive? See the following instructions.

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How to Sync local folders to OneDrive

Usually, OneDrive is pre-installed on your Windows 11/10 PC. If not, you need to manually download OneDrive and install it on the computer. Just go to https://www.microsoft.com/en/microsoft-365/onedrive/download, get the .exe file, and run it to install. Then, start the sync or backup task.

Step 1: Type OneDrive into the search box and click this app to open it.

Step 2: Sign in to OneDrive to get started with your Microsoft account.

Step 3: Choose the OneDrive backup location by clicking Change location. Then, click Next to go on.

Step 4: Decide which folders to back up to OneDrive by enabling/disabling the switch of each category. Then, click Start backup to sync local folders to OneDrive.

After that, go on to know your OneDrive by following the on-screen wizards. You can go to open your OneDrive folder in File Explorer to see files and folders that have been backed up. You can manually drag other local folders to this folder and they will be synced to OneDrive automatically.

OneDrive helps to back up your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to the cloud by default. If you want to change which folders are backed up to OneDrive, it is available:

1. Click the OneDrive icon on the Taskbar, tap on the gear icon, and click Settings.
2. In the OneDrive Settings window, click Manage backup under Sync and backup to choose folders you want to sync in the future and click Save changes.

Besides, you can decide which type of files are not be backed up when you sync local folders to OneDrive. Just click Advanced settings, scroll down to the Excluded file extensions section, and click Exclude.  Then, enter an extension like exe to prevent files from backing up to OneDrive.

If you need to choose what you want to be available in the OneDrive folder, you can click Account in OneDrive Settings, tap on Choose folders, and uncheck folders to let them visible in File Explorer.

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Final Words

To sum up, that’s the basic information on how to sync local folders to OneDrive. If you want to keep your data safe, OneDrive is a good option. Just follow the given instructions to sync folders to OneDrive in Windows 11/10.

In addition to cloud backup, backing up your PC to an external hard drive is another useful backup method. We strongly recommend creating a such backup to follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy.

To back up your data to an external hard drive, you can run the professional PC backup software – MiniTool ShadowMaker. It supports scheduled backups, incremental and differential backups to protect your data securely and reliably. Just get it to have a try. To know how to back up, refer to our previous post – How to Back up Windows 11 (Focuses on Files & System).

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