DATA is the life line of future ! Preserve it.

Data is now more important than before. Be it personal data or professional data. We must find a way to back up our important data on the cloud so that we can access it whenever we have a need for it. But how can we do it securely? There are multiple options like Microsoft one drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. OneDrive is free online storage that comes included with Windows 10 and is synced with your Microsoft account. Once your files are backed up on OneDrive, and you’ll be able to get to them from any PC, tablet, or phone.

How does One Drive work?

Once you install one drive on your computer, it automatcally starts syncing your documents and desktop items in cloud. You can login to your one drive cloud account and see those documents online. Now your documents and folders are backed up and you can access it from anywhere just by logging into your cloud account. quick isn’t it?

Problem with One Drive

But there is one problem with one drive. There is no easier way to backup custom folders in one drive. Many people have multiple drives on their computer and it becomes very important that those folders and drive also gets backed up. There is no straight way to backup those folders through one drive. However, there is one workaround to this, using which you can add custom folders to one drive and backup anything you want.

How to backup custom folders through one drive?

Pre-requisite: You should know the location of one drive folder on your computer. How to find it? Windows 10 stores your OneDrive folder in your account's %UserProfile% folder by default. Run command prompt, type %UserProfile% & press enter. Find one drive folder and copy its path (ex: "C:\Users\{your_username}\OneDrive").

Now let’s get started. The solution is to create a symbolic link in your local one drive folder to the custom folder you want to backup. This tutorial will show you how to sync any folder (eg: C:\work) to OneDrive that is not already in OneDrive for your account in Windows 10 using symbolic links.

Now let’s start with the step by step guide for adding a custom folder to one drive folder for automatic backup. Here’s How:

1: Open run window by pressing windows + R key

2: Open a command prompt by typing CMD and press enter.

3: Type the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

mklink /j "%UserProfile%\OneDrive\{Folder-Name}" "{Full path of the source folder}"
#mklink /j "%UserProfile%\OneDrive - Outshine Labs\work" "C:\work" //Actual command

TIP: Substitute {Full path of the source folder} in the command above with the actual full path of the folder (ex: “C:\Work”) you want to sync with your OneDrive.Substitute Folder-Name in the command above with the folder name (ex: “Example-Folder”) you want to show in OneDrive. This folder is a symbolic link for the source folder. It would be best to use the same name as the source folder to help know what it’s linked to. Also, remember that this must be a new folder name that isn’t already in your OneDrive folder. This specified folder will be created in your OneDrive folder.

4: The source folder (ex: “C:\Work”) will now be synced with your OneDrive (ex: “%UserProfile%\OneDrive\Example-Folder”). Anything you copy, save, and delete in either of these two folders will also be applied to the other folder. (see screenshots below)

Undo Backup of Custom Folder in One Drive

If you want to undo this symbolic linking and stop syncing the source folder with your OneDrive, you would only delete the folder (ex: “%UserProfile%\OneDrive\Example-Folder”) in your OneDrive folder. This will not delete the source folder (ex: “C:\Work”), but will delete it from your online OneDrive.