How to Sync Folders Outside Of The OneDrive Folder

[@drumurrrgh]

Thank you so much! The fact that three years later this is still the only way to do this, and there isn't just an option to select which local folders on any drive you want to sync is absurd, but I'm glad people like you are around to teach the rest of us how it's done.

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You're welcome, D. I suppose that they want you to store everything in the folders they *do* back-up which is also a good option. And since you can now move the location of My Documents to other drives, technically you could move that folder to your other drive and store the folders under that and have your files be backed up. We should probably make a video about that, soon.

[@SciAntGaming]

You are a hero! The only person on the internet who seems to know how to sync any folder from your system without moving everything to the OneDrive folder or have OneDrive create a copy of all your files when you redirect the target location! Thank you it works!

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hey Sci_Ant, I'm sure someone else knows! After all I found the tip in an obscure corner of the internet. Keep in mind that while no files are copied on your PC, OneDrive still needs time to upload / sync all of your files. Happy to see you're happy with the video! :)

[@grantasticbeats]

This is the best video I've found so far. Still seems to be the only option available to work on your computer in your different drives and have them also in the cloud. This needs to be just a general setting in the onedrive interface and it is not still in 2021.

[@kaapuuu]

I think it is made so on purpose so you have to buy expensive Azure backup :)

[@DanishMumtazMirza]

After wandering here and there on KZbin, finally found the solution to this problem. THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You are welcome!

[@bungie17]

Thank you very much brother! I always come back to this video when I need to link a new folder.

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You’re welcome, glad to have you!

[@CaptainBlueSam]

Thank you so much for the video! Definitely helped when a client is wanting to sync Sharepoint up with OneDrive, and not everything is in the same spot.

[@luizraimundojunior7931]

Thank you so much for this video my friend. I was searching for this information for sooo long and couldn't find anywhere. Your video helped me a lot ! Serious , a lot ! Thank you.

[@sheu_her]

Thank you so much!!! It is probably the easiest way to link my obsidian folder in my icloud to my one drive to sync across all ios, mac, window, android devices.

[@hellocharlie_co]

Appreciate the time and effort you put into researching and gathering the info as a video! Thanks

[@amitation]

After two days of trial and error, finally... Thank you so so so much for sharing this awesome tip. 34GB are syncing away.. though it is bit slower, I have no issue as after the initial sync, it will be 30-50 photos and few videos at a time. again, thanks a million good sir :D

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Kmiria, you can also try uploading the files directly to OneDrive (although that might not really be of much help in most scenarios)

[@samlowe4791]

Thankyou so much, I've finally found how to sync folders other than my Desktop and Documents etc. I found other videos but they were using older versions of windows 10 and the methods were no longer viable. I had to run CMD as Administrator FYI.

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hey Sam, we're happy to hear our video helped you. You are right, most videos out there use old(er) versions of OneDrive, that's part of the reason I decided to make an updated version. Good to hear it was useful to you!

[@beautifulcolorado6265]

You my friend are a lifesaver. Thank you so much for helping me out, i could not find anyone else who explained it as well as you did. Subscribed

[@amiramnoamdoron]

damn thanks! you are genius! I searched for solution for hours!!! (worked for me only as adminstrator)

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You're welcome :)

[@paulomiguel05]

Still working 2022. Thank you very much!

[@AKGInfotech]

Thankyou so much brother. You made my day. Don't know why Microsoft won't allow and genius like you have to tweak the ideas and bring it public. Microsoft should learn from you. bro.

[@noajelsch6945]

Wow... It could have been maybe a little more concise but man was it helpful. Thank you so much for this, it helped me a lot, especially for my Visual Studio files! Have a great day! :)

[@richdelacruz328]

Worked great, thanks, I saved so much time!!!!

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Happy to hear it (still) works, Rich.

[@anthonypellicano3728]

Thank you so so so much - I have been trying to solve this - you are a legend

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You're too kind, Anthony. Happy to have been able to help you!

[@AveCaRa]

On my SURFACE I have micro sd card as an E:\ drive which I want to connect to OneDrive. Unfortunately, Command Prompt doesn't want to make a symbolic link giving an answer - Invalid switch - "E". What I should do then? is it possible to connect OneDrive to sd card?

[@PatFleck]

Just what I was looking for. Thanks!

[@dayonariwo]

Thank you so much! I really needed to get this to work!

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Happy to see you got it working! I've been hearing from some people that it somehow doesn't, but it works for me every time I try to set it up!

[@sundarvanchesan2667]

A really helpful video. Hats off to you bro

[@andrerudgebarbosa9854]

Great video, thanks for sharing. Is it actually doubling the amount of memory required for OneDrive or is it just pointing to the new directory?

[@Jack_Callcott_AU]

Thank you a million times over...this was so important to me. Why the hell doesn't Microsoft tell us about this. Along with my subscription to Office I get 1 TB of Onedrive storage and have never been able to really use this. I never wanted all my files to be in the onedrive folder...now my problem is solved. Thank you. Are there different types of links , shortcuts in windows 10 ?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hey Jack, sorry for the late reply. I'm not an expert, but there's regular shartcuts (that would take you to the folder) and there's Symbolic links. A Symbolic links acts like a "mirror" of the object you're linking to as if the file or folder itself is present in the folder.

[@kevindauterman7750]

Great job! Thanks for the help.

[@NadirAli1982]

That is a very great way of doing it, thank you very much

[@Bas-k7n]

Thanks, this really helped.

[@kaushikiyer9445]

is there a way to sync files on your desktop to an already existing folder in OneDrive without creating a subfolder inside the main folder. Eg: There is already a folder named "DemoOneDriveFolder" in OneDrive folder, and i want to sync contents of "D:\DemoDesktopFolder\" inside the "DemoOneDriveFolder" directly. I dont want to create another folder inside "DemoOneDriveFolder". Hope I made my doubt clear.

[@tymon2526]

Thanks! Worked like a charm!

[@pieternel86]

Hey man, HOw do you fix the " 'C:\Users\User\OneDrive' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." problem?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Pieter, I'm late to reply but at which step are you getting this error? It seems like you are missing some part of your command?

[@IceCreationz]

I think this is the first step you locate the one drive path, but you would have to add: cd at the front of the one drive path way to open the folder. Take your time and carefully watch the video.

[@RaulRoa41]

Thank you for this video. It worked!

[@voyyvuelvoenmoto7750]

THANKS LOT!!! btw, do the linked in OneDrive folder stay with the Availability status: Sync pending (the 2 blue arrows), its been a day already and I don't get one single file with the green ticket not with the cloud. I saw the files online in my browser and opened some, they are there, but how do I know if the folder finished syncing?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

The icons will probably remain stuck forever. A small price to pay!

[@voyyvuelvoenmoto7750]

@@PowerUserGuideTV thanks! seem like I will try to merge all my partitions

[@PedreschiMess]

That worked perfectly! Thank you so much for the help!!

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Great to hear!

[@RushRafael]

You're awesome, my man. Thank you!

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You're too kind.

[@jamaicajoypadi6022]

Hi there, i don't have any access with my onedrive account and i need a file which is saved on that account. My question is there any way for me to acces that file without opening the account? Thanks

[@grinps]

Great video! I tried this trick on mac using ln -s command but it doesn't work. It only create a link without syncing the folder content. Does anybody know how to solve this?

[@HeinerDaddel]

Thank you very much. Great info, though a bit unstructured.

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Yup, the unstructured comment is true. Unfortunately side effect of how my brain works, I'm afraid - Steven.

[@LolLol-wg5ym]

This was very helpful. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@shahzadriaz5801]

Folders are showing in OneDrive online by this method but files are not. I am trying to sync only 1kb file but it isn't showing in my online drive.

[@belgradeboy77]

Thanks. Great tutorial

[@WindowedApple]

Thank you so so much, I was going crazy figuring this out... I really don't understand why MS have to create such stupid limitations?!! Update: I'm noticing an issue though... when uploading to onedrive from "My Documents", the upload speed was very fast, but when uploading through these linking, it's just a few kbps?? Any suggestions?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hey Windowed, I haven't really noticed a speed difference between both options. Could have been a temporary hick-up? As far as OneDrive is concerned, it doesn't matter where the upload comes from.

[@bradbury9]

Very likely windows indexed folders (faster "My Documents")

[@-Gous-]

Nice, works like a Charm thank you I Wonder why microsoft isnt doing this as a feature

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

I don't know, perhaps it's not a feature that a lot of people have asked for.

[@IceCreationz]

I think in some case a hard link is preferable than the soft link or symbolic link. Depends if the computer received a virus or corrupted file it doesn't get affected on the hard link

[@jawidabdulrazzaq4598]

thank you very much! it works

[@memywifeandfood]

Thanks! this video was helpful.

[@diefer3]

thank u so much for your time. Im doing every step you said but i received this message: "You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation". Im using administrator user. Any idea? Thx in advance

[@StevenZeegers]

Hey, even if you're an administrator user you STILL need to open the CMD windows as an administrator. Otherwise it won't work.

[@adielboanerge]

Hello, I accidentally linked to the wrong folder. Is there any possible way to unlink/unsync it? :D

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hey there, you should be able to just delete the linked folder (not the place where the files are stored!) in Windows Explorer and then recreate the link again.

[@marwanabujbara1598]

I made the link to a local folder but now I realize that if I edit the folders in OneDrive they also get changed in the local drive. Meaning that this link is bidirectional. Is there a way to reverse this? Or to make OneDrive sync only from local folders to the cloud and not the other way around?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hi Marwan, unfortunately not. Both folders are "linked" to each other so changing something in OneDrive will also affect the local directory. There's no way to avoid is as far as I know.

[@PatrickTT]

Is there any way to do this on a Mac / macOS?

[@jiahuipan4005]

How to remove the symbolic link without deleting the original folders and files? I used your method to create a symbolic link months ago but now I would like to remove the link. Thank you so much!

[@tiagoc6251]

king

[@nelsondraftingdesignltd675]

Hey, Thanks for this! I'm almost there, just having trouble with getting the mklink command to work. This is what I've typed, any ideas why it wont work? C:\Users\PC\OneDrive\D Drive Backup>mklink CAD ARCHIVE D:\CAD ARCHIVE /D When I enter it I get "The syntax of the command is incorrect."

[@nelsondraftingdesignltd675]

As you were, I've worked it out. I needed to use Administrator rights in Command Prompt. Secondly, I needed to use quotation marks around both the "link" & "target" as CAD ARCHIVE is two words. So mklink "CAD ARCHIVE" "D:\CAD ARCHIVE" /D worked.

[@antagotv]

thank you very much for your help

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Always welcome

[@jashanlal7396]

at the final stage of linking while typing mlink "target file-name" "target file link" /D getting error that ""you do not have sufficient privileges' to perform this action"" please assist

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Jashan, did you run the command prompt as an Administrator, as explained early on in the video?

[@jashanlal7396]

@@PowerUserGuideTV yes sir

[@jashanlal7396]

​@@PowerUserGuideTV done successful by doing again with more attention, thanks sir

[@IceCreationz]

I need to see the command for a mapping drive (Shared folder on the network)

[@BigGoldBelt]

Thank you !!!

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

No, thank *you* for watching this video.

[@sunalilewis6578]

Fantastic, thank you!

[@johnpcurtiss]

i did this 20 minutes ago, and everything in the linked folder says "sync pending"; the onedrive icon in the tray says everything is "up to date"

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Give it some time to sync! And if you want to double check, make sure to check Onedrive.com to see if you can see the files there.

[@johnpcurtiss]

@@PowerUserGuideTV zero files in 20 minutes was not long enough to wait? There are zero files on the onedrive website

[@dr.sumoudalomar9945]

Very usefull, Thnx

[@Dr-Al8]

Finally found a solution to this... tried google/microsoft/onedrive they never had the answer to a simple question... how can I sync any folder to OneDrive. This saved me tons of time. Thanks man. Lifesaver.

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Happy our video helped yo!

[@delcoker3]

this is cool

[@x21xpress]

This does link the path to the local onedrive folder, but if you logon to your onedrive in 365 you'll see it never syncs. It only contains the files/folders that were in the target location when the mklink was created... that is, no changes are reflected to the cloud. So basically this doesn't work. It does work folder to folder on the local PC, but does not work with onedrive.

[@siddharthrawat7205]

Thanks, it worked but the sync is taking too long. I ended up moving my data to the Desktop folder which means onedrive will sync it automatically. your method kind of worked but I guess onedrive has changed something.

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

I'll have to look into that. Not sure if I'll be able to replicatre that, though. But I'll try and see what happesn. :)

[@danm4320]

Could be the drive you are linking from is too slow. Could also be a limit imposed on your computer

[@IceCreationz]

Great solutions

[@alaamr]

Hello, this is exactly what I was looking for, but it says I do not have sufficient privilege to perform an operation

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Have you used "Run as administrator" to open the terminal? Otherwise it's not going to work.

[@timscheidegger1145]

"access denied" although i ran cmd as admin, any suggestions?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Hey there, could you try and record your steps and upload them somewhere so we could take a look at where things might have gone wrong? Can't really tell you off the top of my head.

[@siddharthrawat7205]

same thing happed to me, you just have to run the CMD in administrator mode.

[@milt9832]

I try with this: "E:\OneDrive\Pictures>mklink My Pictures D:\My Pictures /D" But the result is this: "The syntax of the command is incorrect." What is wrong?

[@crunchyintheory]

You need to put quotes around the paths since they have spaces in them

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

@@crunchyintheory That's correct, the last path needs to be put between quotes as well.

[@رنتيسي]

this is not working bro cuz nothing got uploaded to the cloud and status stacked at sync pending

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

This video is over a year old. Some things might have been changed, I'm sorry it's not working for you!

[@رنتيسي]

@@PowerUserGuideTV in fact your method showed me the way to make it work thanks for that

[@advaiths4469]

It is showing "The syntax of the command is incorrect" Please help this is emergency

[@kaapuuu]

It doesn't work . Shows the folder is "syncing" but actually it never syncs. M$ pushes you for expensive azure backups this way.

[@richsmart321]

if this used to work, it no longer does. the files do not get copied over to onedrive

[@advaiths4469]

Please respond I need it immediately because my Project due date is today please help

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

What you see in the video is all the support you're going to get here, I'm afraid.

[@dongdevcom]

Thank you

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You're welcome

[@petarpantovic7032]

Great:)

[@manurung497]

onedrive synch is a nightmare for cloud storage.

[@emdadt]

6:06 it is saying you do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

You need to open the cmd prompt as an administrator, if I recall correctly.

[@emdadt]

@@PowerUserGuideTV I made it thanks

[@luukhoekstra6413]

Hoi mede Nederlander

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Bijna juist! Belg met voorouders die vanuit Nederland de Maas zijn overgestoken!

[@O2S2_STREAM]

You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation. idk, what's wromh with that?

[@80davidbuchanan]

I have the same problem. Anyone know how to solve this?

[@PowerUserGuideTV]

Did you remember to open Cmd as an Administrator? Otherwise it's probably not going to work.

[@kboroumand]

This creates the symbolic link but it does not sync the folder for me.

[@advaiths4469]

I'm not spamming for a bad reason but this is emergency so don't ignore my messages please

[@rahulnagpal1262]

Thank you so much. it works . cheers!

[@mahendranathchallagondla155]

Thank you