Backing up to OneDrive

Hi all, the Windows 10 OneDrive app is pretty basic when it comes to backing up your data with only 3 predefined folders you can back up (Desktop, Documents, and Pictures). As far as I can tell this is not customizable with being able to select additional locations, apply filters, etc. Now there are plenty of 3rd party tools that can backup to OneDrive, but I’m not thrilled about granting a 3rd party app read/write access to my OneDrive file system and would prefer an “All Microsoft” backup solution. Does anyone have any experiences/recommendations?

Conversation 6 comments

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    10 January, 2020 - 5:07 am

    <p>You can create any folders you want on OneDrive. Those are just the standard folders.</p><p>You could simply have Robocopy running as a scheduled task. I use OneDrive as my main storage, then I have a Robocopy sync that with a 2TB drive on my main machine every hour and after that, a second Robocopy job that syncs that with a backup partition on my NAS. The 2TB drive gets backed up to Carbonite as well.</p><p>Robocopy is part of Windows.</p>

  • Patrick3D

    10 January, 2020 - 9:42 am

    <p>Should be possible with symbolic links, I don't do it myself but do a search for a tutorial and you will find plenty of helpful videos and articles explaining how to do so.</p>

  • energy

    Premium Member
    16 January, 2020 - 4:53 pm

    <p>I need to do more along these lines as well. Thanks for the ideas @Patrick3D and @wright_is.</p><p><br></p>

  • wunderbar

    Premium Member
    16 January, 2020 - 5:25 pm

    <p>Any third party app installed on Windows 10 technically has read/write access to onedrive already, since onedrive is built into the file system/explorer.</p><p><br></p><p>Just find a good tool that does automatic, scheduled copy of data, regardless of who makes it. Don't try to make it more complicated than it needs to be.</p>

  • rob_segal

    Premium Member
    16 January, 2020 - 5:28 pm

    <p>In File Explorer, you can also manually change the location of the Download, Music, and Video folders to folders you can create in OneDrive.</p>

  • techguy33

    16 January, 2020 - 9:54 pm

    <p>I tested an eval version of a backup/sync tool called GoodSync which supports OneDrive/Google Drive/Drop Box/etc. as the backup destination. Looks like it uses OAuth2…it brings up a browser where you enter your MS Account user/password. I used one of my older hotmail accounts I don't care about. After entering user/pass you have to grant the product read/write access to OneDrive on your MS account. I granted permissions and backed up a few test files. The performance was good. It's actually a pretty nice tool.</p><p><br></p><p>If you then go into your Microsoft Account in a browser you will see this app show up under "Privacy/Apps and Services that can Access your data". You can revoke it's permissions anytime. As a test I revoked the permission, immediately went back into the app and tried to back up some more files AND IT WORKED! I was a little disturbed how the app could still access OneDrive after revoking permissions, but after a little digging it looks like the OAuth token expires after around 12 hours. When I tried again the next day, the backup failed because the request to renew the token was rejected due to revoking the permissions. </p><p><br></p><p>Looks like a solid tool and will prob get a license.</p>

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