How Do I Backup Files in OneDrive? (Yes, you should.)

➡️ You shouldn't rely on OneDrive as the only place for your files. Backing them up elsewhere is important, but there may be bumps in the road.
➡️ Backing up OneDrive files
OneDrive files exist in the cloud, but not all files are automatically or completely downloaded to your PC, due to space-saving features like Choose Folders and Files On-Demand. This means some files might not be present on your PC for backup. To ensure that all OneDrive files are backed up, you can either adjust settings to download all files or understand that not everything in OneDrive is being backed up with your PC.
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✅ Watch next ▶ Using OneDrive for Nearly Continuous Backup ▶ • Using OneDrive for Nea...
Chapters
0:00 Backup OneDrive Files
0:50 Why back up OneDrive?
2:00 What if you lose your OneDrive account?
2:40 Why files might not be present on your PC
3:30 OneDrive account
4:00 Managing space
5:30 Syncing Files on Demand
8:30 Three possible states of files
9:30 If you have plenty of disk space
11:10 If you don't have enough space
11:40 Use another computer
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#askleo #onedrive #backup

[@askleonotenboom]

Yes, you should back up your OneDrive files outside of OneDrive.

[@rounderone8437]

Thank you, Leo! I've been using One Drive for more than a year and now I finally understand how this works.

[@megapangolin1093]

Crikey, Leo, you always offer a mountain of good sense and solutions to problems that people don't think they have- until they have problems. Again, another day, another thing learnt. I thought I had One Drive cracked, but not in any way, it is much more complicated than the average person can deal with, without tuition- like this. This is the best 15 minutes I have spent today. Thank you.

[@mohammedshoaibali907]

Thank you Leo . From 2021 I am searching for the green tick that comes on folder from one drive . Now I satisfied by this video u explain . Great job man . 👍

[@ericgraham7026]

Hi Leo, thank you for yet another brilliant video. You provide information in such a clear and well thought out way. I am learning even when I thought I knew the subject. Keep up this excellent service.

[@pdep]

I love the way you get straight into the ´meat´ of the video topic in seconds. No fluff, no fancy into, just BAM! Straight into it!

[@LaurenTobias-pd6ii]

This is exactly the answer I needed!

[@jantorfs5302]

And indeed that file mentioned below did not look any better on the other 2 pc's that have one drive.... Very helpful video, thank you..

[@Ed-ve9of]

Great info presented very clearly. I'm curious what you think of services like Acronis that offer cloud to cloud backup for one's Microsoft 365 account (including OneDrive)?

[@hastalavista8625]

Great info. Thanks

[@NoEgg4u]

@0:40 -- If I understand what our host explained, there is a potential problem. If, for example, you have 3 devices, all set up to automatically sync, then if you screw up a file one of those 3 devices, then your screw-up gets copied to your other 2 devices. Whereas, if you were to not set automatic syncing on one of your 3 devices, then you would recover your file from the device that did not get synced. I suggest that if you can count on yourself to periodically manually sync your files, then that will give you finer control over the safekeeping of your files. But if you know yourself, and you know that you will not bother to periodically manually sync your files, then set the automatic syncing. Putting 100% on autopilot is giving up a level of control. But autopilot is good for some people -- until they accidentally mangle some file and kick themselves for having that mangled file overwrite the good copies on their other devices. Lastly, when you use cloud storage, you are using someone else's computer (complete strangers). You are handing your files to complete strangers, in the clear. Yes, your files get encrypted in transport to the strangers. But they get decrypted upon arrival at the stranger's computer. Microsoft, Google, and any other cloud storage service can see everything that you put on their computers. They are not likely looking (unless you are a noteworthy person -- a celebrity, or government official, or someone making headlines, etc). But it is likely that they scan everything, and who knows what type of index or profile they build on you. If you have trade secrets, or anything that can ruin your life, you would be nuts to hand those files over to them. If you encrypt your files, before they get uploaded to a cloud service, then you are protecting yourself. But if you upload your company's trade secrets, without first encrypting them, you are reckless. Cloud storage services require you to agree to contracts written 100% by their attorneys, to serve their interests, that you are required to agree with, which turns ownership of your files to them. In other words, any files that you put on their servers are now owned by them. If you do not need the convince of syncing files between devices, then just make copies of your important files, and manually put them on your other devices, as needed. But if you care zero about sharing your files with anonymous people, then cloud services are a great option.

[@riffdex]

That’s exactly how it works, by design. OneDrive is not a backup, it’s a syncing system that people often mistake for a backup. But if you have a PC connected to OneDrive you can set an automated backup (let’s say that runs once a day at 12:00 midnight). So if you accidentally deleted a file from OneDrive you could have a backup that contains that from the prior day at midnight.

[@itlabs2351]

can you please elaborate on backing up your various cloud services to external hdd 24/7. is the drive encrypted? whats the layered sec on that backup pc?

[@Mark-ki3pu]

Thank You Leo, so glad I saw your video. Although it did help alot, I have a long way to go with saving my files. When I save a photo or a document ( am doing a lot of Ancestry saving) Sometimes I can never find the article or photo again. So frustrating. I even subscribe to Microsoft account annually in hopes I won't lose my stuff but I don't know how to use it. I will keep studying your videos!!

[@l.janescroggins2555]

yeah me too!

[@hbodiver]

Great info

[@CarlosAlvarez-113]

Como puedo hacer el respaldo de One Drive sin usar un PC adicional. solo quiero hacer un back up directo en un EXTERNAL hard drive. Many thnks !! your videos are very clear

[@cam_934]

Onedrive does have a 30 day version history and a recycle bin, it also has ransomware detection. But yes if MS lock your account or you don't pay your bill for more than 5GB storage then that backup strategy is at risk.

[@johnpro2847]

i use google free storage as well..surely both would not lose everything ?

[@CyberMedics]

Enjoyed the explanation of onedrive backup. By default ondrive links to the user profile on C drive. Do you have a video that explains how to link onedrive backup to an external D drive for example? Thanks for the video!

[@askleonotenboom]

OneDrive settings has a location option. If nothing else you can unlink, move your OneDrive folder to D:, and then re-link making sure to specify the new location as part of setup. askleo.com/how-do-i-move-my-onedrive-folder/

[@CyberMedics]

@@askleonotenboom Perfect! Thank you Leo!

[@jantorfs5302]

I used some files on Onedrive and did not back up them. However one file had a problem: One drive kept saying "there is a more recent version on line, do you want to use that?" I said no for months, till one day I thought"maybe better to use that newer file .. I must have done something wrong" . The moment I said yes to the newer file it update my file and I lost all changes I had made last 4 months! But no worries ... One drive has a history of this file, or at least I thought so. However when I looked at the history there was my last file and then files from January and earlier but all the ones from february to april were missing. Gone was all my work...

[@bfd1918]

I dont fancy applying onedrive storage in the system and the storage to me eventhough is free, but sometimes it can be fully full. This causes some program unable to download. As you sa Leo, i do agree with you, onedrive is not safe for long term.Thanks

[@hassanmaje5849]

When backing up PC I'm unsure if Google Drive files and folders on the PC have been backed up as well after what you explain with OneDrive. Something weird is happening in Google Drive. 1. Under Google Drive Settings it indicates that files are on the cloud or in other words online but not mirrored to the PC. 2. Under Google Drive>My Drive I right click and under properties it shows the size of files and folders and all of them are occupying disk space on the PC. 3. All folders and files under My Drive in Windows Explorer show the empty cloud icons 4. Any file I opened under My Drive opens fast without downloading. 5. When right clicking any file or folder under My Drive it gives an option to keep this file or folder offline. 1,3, and 5 above suggest that the files and folders are online without local copies. 2 and 4 above seem to suggest that the files and folders are local while on the cloud too. There are no sync issues or error messages in the Google Drive icon running in the taskbar tray on the PC. The above is quite contradictory, inconsistent and confusing.

[@dwilson5039]

thanks

[@johnburgess2084]

At 7:40, If you back up your laptop, in your MyWordDocuments, I'd think that example 2 & 3 would be "accessed" by the backup program (just like opening example 1 like you did), the file would be retrieved from OneDrive, now be on your laptop, and backed up. You're saying it does not work like that? Thanks for the informative video. We have one of our PCs with all our pictures, and it has a Carbonite subscription. I should probably set up my laptop to do backups with that other PC as the backup target, then the backup file(s) will be backed up to Carbonite as well.

[@ytrbro1041]

I do not see that "always keep on this device" option a few files that I do not want to backup. I have a few files that are not synching I would like to remove them from being backed up.

[@nigelogilvie9450]

Leo, your entirely valid headline question is "How do I backup onedrive files?" I don't see an answer here. I have two computers with 256 Gb ssd's and I have about 600 Gb of files on onedrive. At present I back up using a couple of 1Tb external drives, alternating. I copy from onedrive using File Manager Copy (in the onedrive structure) and Paste on the external drive. Sooner or later I am going to make a mistake, for example using Cut and Paste in error. I don't think any proprietary backup package will back up from onedrive. I can't have everything on onedrive permanently accessible locally - I don't have enough room.

[@gonzchi]

It's not a backup tool. It's a file synching thing.

[@tonylow9232]

Sorry, but if I back up my PC with my one drive file downloaded. When I restored from the PC backup. How to prevent onedrive from deleting file on PC? I mean will one drive delete my PC file because in the cloud, there is supposing no file at all.

[@johnbateson1004]

It seems to me that once OneDrive has been started then any files in the "native" documents folder stay there and do not appear under OneDrive. Any files I download (update files for example) are on this "native" drive.

[@askleonotenboom]

That's true UNTIL you turn on the OneDrive backup feature, at which point things are irrevocably moved around.

[@davinp]

New users may be confused why your files were moved from your PC's Documents folder to OneDrive's Documents folder

[@sethm10]

Thanks Leo for another great video. If what I hear is what I think - you have files backed up from pc1 to One drive and the One drive backed up to pc2. If that’s my understanding, then what method used to back up the one drive?

[@askleonotenboom]

Backing up either PC1 or PC2 using an image backup will do it.

[@sethm10]

⁠makes sense, thx!

[@user-nn8br5tz2u]

When I try backing up my computer to an external hard drive it automatically excludes the One Drive files. Is there any way around this?

[@askleonotenboom]

Depends on the backup program you're using, and the configuration of OneDrive.

[@l.janescroggins2555]

Help! Onedrive puts my files on OneDrive whether I want them there or not! I doing some graphic files I do not want in the cloud. My internet is sketchy and I don't want to work off of the cloud! And it saves somethings to the cloud that I have no idea where it went! I have to search dates to find my files! HELP Surely there is a way to stop it!

[@Treemike1000]

Thank you!

[@itlabs2351]

so files on demand doesnt take up space until its opned?

[@askleonotenboom]

Exactly.

[@PantheraTK]

Unfortunately this video confirmed that the problem I have has no solution. I want to move to using a laptop and was wondering if there was a way to backup roughly 500GB of files from onedrive onto an external drive if the Laptop only has 256GB. I dont want to use a second machine to do so, its a shame there is no backup mechanism for this scenario.

[@askleonotenboom]

You can mark a OneDrive folder as not-visible in your laptop's one drive, and then upload the files you don't want on the laptop into that folder via the onedrive.com website.

[@PantheraTK]

@@askleonotenboom thanks for the reply but I dont see how that would allow me to backup all of my onedrives files (500+GB) onto an external drive connected to my laptop of 256GB

[@askleonotenboom]

@@PantheraTK I think I misunderstood. Only thing I can think of is to move your OneDrive folder TO the external drive which a) is pretty risky, since we don't know how OneDrive will react if the drive's disconnected, and b) OneDrive might not let you do anyway.

[@davinp]

I also backup my files to an external drive

[@lem4100]

I hate One Drive!