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I have 3 hard drives. I would like to sync specific folders from each drive with MS OneDrive. One hard-drive cannot hold all the files from all hard drives.

How can I do this with OneDrive?

Simcha Khabinsky
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2 Answers2

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What I have done in the past is use symlinks to sync everything to OneDrive, and maintain the folder structure I want. For example, when coding, I like to keep my source folders on the root of C:, so that I can easily access it from menus (C:\coding). So what I'll do is create a folder in OneDrive called coding then symlink it to the root of C: using cmd.exe

mklink /d "C:\Link\Location" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Path\To\Source\Folder"
mklink /d "C:\coding" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\coding"

Elevated permissions are required to do this.

You can do this with as many folders as necessary. Just remember, the source folder HAS to be in OneDrive. If you have existing folders that you want to sync, move them all to OneDrive and then symlink them to where they originally were located. Example:

mklink /d "C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Documents"
mklink /d "C:\Users\USERNAME\Desktop" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Desktop"
mklink /d "C:\Users\USERNAME\Favorites" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Favorites"
mklink /d "C:\Users\USERNAME\Desktop\Vacation Pics" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Vacation Pics"
mklink /d "C:\Whatever I want" "C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Whatever I want"

--edit--

There is also the application Link Shell Extension that I have found extremely useful. Full instructions are found at the link, but... It integrates with Windows' Explorer shell and adds an item to the context menu. You can right click a folder to select it as the symlink source, then left click in the directory you want the symlink to be located. I think it does other things as well, but this is all I use it for. FYI, it requires VCRedist 2005 if memory serves, and does not include that dependency bundled.

jparnell8839
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  • What if I have 500Gigs of files in `C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents` - and the OneDrive folder is in on a harddrive with only 250 Gigs? – Simcha Khabinsky Oct 28 '15 at 19:33
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    @SimchaKhabinsky One drive does not have that much space, if somehow you have it, move one drive folder to disk with more space, simple! – JuliandotNut Jan 03 '16 at 08:44
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    @JuliandotNut Space size is always relative. For example, if you purchase Office 365 - via Microsoft - you get 1 Terabyte of space on OneDrive. Some of my physical hard-drives are only 500 Gigs. – Simcha Khabinsky Jan 04 '16 at 17:54
  • In the case of OneDrive for Business, you can mount your library to a network drive that doesn't use local storage (since it's all SharePoint anyway). If you're not using OneDrive for Business, then don't install / activate the OneDrive application. You couldn't store that much on the drive regardless of the amount of OneDrive space you have. If you're worried about syncing down that much, choose which folders to sync, rather than everything. – jparnell8839 Jan 05 '16 at 04:33
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For now, MS OneDrive client application only supports one folder. You would need to move all your files into that one folder.

You also cannot use Windows Explorer Libraries as the OneDrive folder - since those are NOT really folders.

Directory links are also not supported in some versions of windows. (http://www.howtogeek.com/174765/how-to-sync-any-folder-with-skydrive-on-windows-8.1/)

The Solution

What I used in the end is SyncDriver - does everything you need from any folder:

http://syncdriver.com/

First you set up the one folder where all the online stuff will go. Then you add any folder - from any drive - and it all goes to OneDrive. Simple and easy to use.

You also have options to only sync in specific directions:

  1. OneDrive => local
  2. local => OneDrive
  3. Bi-Directional
Simcha Khabinsky
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  • I believe this may fall under the description of "Link Only answers". There is little more substance than the link itself [How to Answer](http://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer) – jparnell8839 Jun 30 '15 at 12:44
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    @jparnell8839 Updating my answer now – Simcha Khabinsky Oct 28 '15 at 19:23
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    Since SyncDriver seems to be defunct now... any other alternatives? – siliconpi Mar 16 '17 at 11:23
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    @siliconpi you can check my answer out - it is still valid and relevant. I am about to update it with an application that I found that integrates into Windows' context menu, allowing you to right click a folder and pick it as source, and then right click where you want it to put it as the destination – jparnell8839 May 13 '17 at 00:03