How to sync any folder with skydrive on windows 8.1

I upgraded to Win 8.1 from Win 8, and all the sub-folders and files in my SkyDrive folder are set to availability: online only, even though some of these folders were on my HDD and synced to the cloud. In addition, folders that weren’t set to sync from SkyDrive to my local PC, and were only stored in the cloud, are now present in my SkyDrive folder on my PC.

How can I change the settings for SkyDrive (in Win 8 I used to do this using the desktop SkyDrive app)?

How come the local sub-folder’s (which are sync to the cloud) availability is set to “online only”?

And do the sub-folders that weren’t synced, and were only stored in the cloud, are now downloaded to my HDD?

Appreciate your help.

• Subscribe
• Subscribe to RSS feed

Report abuse

Replies (8) 

This issue could be caused due to some incorrect settings or if something went wrong during the upgrade. To change the availability of folders to either “Online only” or “Make Offline”, try these steps:

To make all the folders and sub folders in your Skydrive available offline, go the Skydrive app, press Windows key + C, Click on settings and then Options. Now select “Access all files Offline” to either ON or OFF.

If you want to make particular folder to be available either online only or offline as well, you can switch off the “Access all files offline” option as described above and then right click on a particular folder to get the app bar below. Now click on “Online only” or “Make offline” to make it available only online or to make it available offline as well.

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back to us if you have any Windows related queries in the future; we’d be happy to help.

Report abuse

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank you for your reply.

I have a few more questions.

I performed a “reset recovery” (remove everything) because my PC wasn’t working properly after upgrading to Win 8.1.
After performing the recovery, my SkyDrive folder is set to C:\Users\myname\SkyDrive.

How do I move/set this SkyDrive folder to a different location?

I used to have a SkyDrive desktop app (I got it through the Essential package), and through it I set which folders were synced, where the SkyDrive folder was located on my PC, etc. I had 2 main folders (with several sub folders) which were synced to the cloud, and a few other folders which were present in the cloud but weren’t synced to my PC (mostly for picture sharing with family and friends). These un-synced folders weren’t shown on my local SkyDrive folder.

After upgrading to Win 8.1, I see all the folders that are present in the cloud in my local SkyDrive default folder, but they’re set as “online only” (this is true after I performed the recovery).

1) This is a noobish question, but I assume that online only means it doesn’t take any HDD space, right?

2) How do I remove the un-synced folders from my SkyDrive folder (without deleting then in the cloud, of course)?

3) Do I need to download the desktop SkyDrive app to set which folders will be synced, which folder will be set as my SkyDrive folder (as asked above), etc.?

4) Is it possible to sync any folder to the cloud (as it was possible with Mesh), or only the sub-folders present in the SkyDrive folder (this is how it used to work with SkyDrive)?

I’m not sure if things changed in Win 8.1 regarding SkyDrive integration, but I’m a bit confused about how this service now works.

Instant access to all your files with much less syncing.

Ars Staff – Jul 2, 2013 11:00 pm UTC

reader comments

Share this story

When it was released, Windows 8 integrated cloud services were unmatched by any prior Windows version. Chief among its improvements was the Microsoft Account integration: sign in to Windows with your Microsoft Account credentials, and your settings will roam from machine to machine. Behind the scenes, this syncing all used SkyDrive.

Windows 8 also included a Metro SkyDrive app for browsing SkyDrive storage. This plumbed into the Metro APIs, enabling Metro apps to save and load files directly from SkyDrive. However, it left the desktop behind. The file-syncing desktop app had to be installed separately.

With the desktop app installed in Windows 8 (and below), SkyDrive offers the same kind of syncing and cloud storage that Dropbox and other services provide. Microsoft is more generous with the amount of free storage you get (7GB for SkyDrive, to 2GB for Dropbox, though Dropbox users can earn up to 18GB with referrals and other bonuses), but the experience is broadly similar regardless of which service you use.

This means that SkyDrive in Windows 8 suffers the same annoyance as these other services: what do you do when you don’t want to sync all your files to a machine? There’s a selective sync option, of course, but if you then want to use a file that’s not in the synced set, you have to stop what you’re doing and switch to the Web front-end to download them.

SkyDrive in 8.1 changes this up.

First of all, SkyDrive is a lot more prominent now, as it’s exposed on the desktop by default. Explorer shows a SkyDrive folder. Libraries, the aggregated storage locations first introduced in Windows 7, aggregate SkyDrive storage by default. The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

On the Metro side, SkyDrive is now integrated into the settings app. From here you can configure most of SkyDrive’s behavior, including which settings are synced, which quality photos are uploaded, and whether to upload on connections that are billed per byte. The Settings app also lets you buy more storage.

What is missing, both in the desktop and the Settings app, is control over selective sync. But that’s because of SkyDrive’s new feature, which is magical.

SkyDrive now shows all your files as if they had been synced locally. They just look like normal files. They have thumbnails, filenames, all the usual metadata. What they don’t do is take up space on disk.

As soon as an app opens a file (and this applies to both Metro apps and desktop apps), SkyDrive pulls it from the server. Modifications are then synced back normally. The same occurs if a file is copied or moved; it gets automatically retrieved.

Instead of the normal selective sync options, folders can be right clicked (in both the Metro app and Explorer) and set as available offline, forcing files to be downloaded, or online only, removing local copies and doing on-demand downloads.

Behind the scenes, the first time a PC syncs with SkyDrive, it pulls down all the basic metadata: the tree structure, filenames, and so on. Then, it pulls down special metadata, such as thumbnails and full text. In many ways, this makes the files act like normal files. They can be found in searches; they have the right icons in Explorer.

The files themselves use the reparse point mechanism first introduced in Windows 2000. During that first sync, stub files (“reparse points”) are created to mimic the directory structure stored on SkyDrive. Any operation on these files is intercepted automatically, allowing SkyDrive to download the file on-demand.

The use of this (rather low-level) mechanism makes SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 very transparent. Virtually any application should work correctly, with only a download delay disclosing that a file isn’t stored locally. Even the command-line can work with SkyDrive files. The system should even work correctly with backup applications. Backup software should understand reparse points and treat them specially, so backing up your SkyDrive folder shouldn’t cause the entire thing to be downloaded.

As a result, you can have tens or hundreds of gigabytes of files stored on a server, while still retaining pseudo-instant access. There’s no long sync process.

The system still has a few areas where I think it could be improved. It would be nice to be able to set some kind of overall limit on how much disk space SkyDrive can use; on a small tablet (say, 32 or even 64 GB), I’d like to be able to say, “You can use up to 4 GB for offline storage” and have the software automatically remove local copies of files that I haven’t used for a while.

There’s also an odd asymmetry with SkyDrive Pro, the similar cloud storage feature that’s part of Office 365. SkyDrive Pro shares a name, but appears to share none of the functionality. The magic, transparent access of online files is only found in the regular SkyDrive brand.

In Windows 8.1, SkyDrive becomes an elegant, easy to use cloud storage solution. The free storage alone makes it compelling; the deep integration into the operating system makes it better than its competitors.

OneDrive is free online storage that comes with your Microsoft account. Learn how to sync local folders to OneDrive easily from this page.

By Lily / Last update September 26, 2021

Quick Navigation:

Why to sync local folders to OneDrive?

As free online storage offered by Microsoft, OneDrive enjoys great popularity among Windows users. With OneDrive, you can sync files between your computer and the cloud easily. If you add, change, or delete a file or folder in your OneDrive folder, the file or folder is added, changed, or deleted on the OneDrive website and vice versa.

You may sync PC folders to OneDrive for the following reasons:

• Access your files from anywhere. After you sync local files to OneDrive, you can get to them from any PC, tablet, or phone with your Microsoft account.
• Keep a backup copy of your files and folders.
• Share files with others easily with the built-in “Share” feature.

How to use OneDrive to sync folders in Windows 11/10/8/7

In Windows 11/10/8.1, OneDrive app is already installed. For Windows 8/7 users, you have to download OneDrive app and install it by yourself. Follow the instructions below to sync local folder with OneDrive:

1. Tap the Search button on the taskbar and type “onedrive” in the search box. Click the top result and sign in with your Microsoft account.

2. On the This is your OneDrive folder screen, select Next to accept the default folder location for your OneDrive files.

Tip: If you want to change the folder location, select Change location. This is the best time to make this change because you haven’t sync any files up to now.

3. Click Open my OneDrive folder to get to your OneDrive folder.

4. Drag and drop or copy and paste the files/folders you want to sync into the OneDrive folder. The client will automatically sync them to the OneDrive website.

After adding local folders to OneDrive, your files are available both online at OneDrive.com and offline on your PC. The operations aren’t complicated. However, you may find it inconvenient in the following situations:

If the files/folders you want to sync are located in different paths, it would be a tedious work to drag and drop or copy and paste files/folders repetitively.

If you want to sync changes from your PC to the cloud, you must edit files in the OneDrive folder. If you edit files in their original location such as desktop, the changes won’t be synced.

If you want to change or add folder to OneDrive sync, right-click the cloud icon, select Settings, Account, then Choose folders to make your changes.

Easier way to sync PC folders to OneDrive

How to make it easier to sync folders from different locations to OneDrive, and sync subsequent changes to the cloud? How to make OneDrive backup specific folder automatically? AOMEI Backupper Standard, the best free file sync software, is the answer.

✩ With the Sync feature, you can synchronize files from PC to USB drives, SD cards, NAS devices, or cloud drives, etc, and vice versa.
✩ You can run automatic sync using the Schedule feature. There are five schedule modes: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event triggers (paid), and USB plug-in (paid).
✩ All Windows PC operating systems like Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP are supported.

Learn how to sync local folders to OneDrive via AOMEI Backupper below:

1. Download, install and run AOMEI Backupper.

2. Click Sync on the left pane and select Basic Sync.

Note: If you upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional, you can enjoy the other three sync modes.
>> Mirror Sync: it will keep the destination folder exactly the same as the source folder. If there are files only existing in the destination folder, they will be deleted.
>> Real-Time Sync: it will synchronize file changes almost without delay.
>> Two-Way Sync: it will sync changed files from the source directory to the destination directory as well as the other way around.

3. Name the task so that you can distinguish it from other sync tasks. Click Add Folder to select the folder you want to sync.

Tip: If you want to sync multiple folders simultaneously, click the “+” icon after you add the first source folder.

4. Click the inverted triangle at the right edge of the second bar and choose Select a cloud drive.

5. Select OneDrive cloud and click OK. If you cannot find OneDrive in the list, then go back to Step 4 and manually navigate to the OneDrive local folder by clicking the folder shaped button in the second bar.

6. Click on Start Sync to perform the operation.

Tips:
● You can click Options in the lower-left corner to write a comment for your sync task so that you can figure out the specific sync contents; you can also enable email notification here.
● Don’t modify the name of the source folder(s) after doing file sync, or the program cannot synchronize it (them) anymore.
● You are also allowed to sync local folder to Google Drive with AOMEI Backupper. Just install Google Drive desktop application and select “Google Drive” in Step 5.

Verdict

Now you know how to sync local folders to OneDrive in Windows 11/10/8/7. AOMEI Backupper provides you with an easier way to finish the task—you can sync folders from different locations to OneDrive in one sync task and you can sync changes to the cloud after you edit files in their original location.

What’s more, AOMEI Backupper owns the features of backup, restore and clone. You are allowed to backup files to external hard drive, run block level incremental backup, clone SSD to larger SSD in Windows 10 via AOMEI Backupper. Don’t hesitate to give it a try!

I have got major problem in my Windows 8.1 pro computer. I am unable to use File History to backup Windows desktop version of the Skydrive folder to a a local server, but it worked fine in Win 8 OS. I try other files and folders and they run correctly. Should I need to replicate Skydrive to another folder? I creat a new library but that doesn’t take anyy effects. How can I fix the issues after the system upgraded?

Many people have faced the same problem in the Windows 8.1. According to the Microsoft Services Agreement applied to the online services, Microsoft realizes that have backup of their customers file contents stored on their online cloud services is a good idea, so there is not official way to use File History to backup SkyDrive file available on all devices anymore. However, if you would like to do that, try the following solution to make a regular backup plan:

* First create a new “Backups” folder and add it to your libraries.
* Go inside that folder, and create a “BackupOfSkydrive” folder.
* The Robocopy command can help you synchronize files, so write a command to copy the entirety of SkyDrive folder to the “BackupOfSkyDrive” folder, and put it into a .bat file on your desktop to operate scheduled the service.

robocopy your-SkyDrive-source-directory the-destination-location /BAK /MON:1 /MOT:10

The above command will start the job every 10 minutes. Simply double-click the batch file to run it.

Information

SkyDrive is now called OneDrive instead.

OneDrive is a cloud-based storage service where you can view, browse, upload, and share the files you saved online to OneDrive.com. Store any file on OneDrive and it’s automatically available to access or share from any device.

In Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1, OneDrive is more deeply integrated at the system level. You need to sign in with a Microsoft account to browse your OneDrive and keep your files and settings in sync.

• If you sign in to Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1 with a Microsoft account, your OneDrive folders are now displayed in the navigation pane of File Explorer for easier access and management while online or offline. In addition, the OneDrive app will still always be available on your Start screen for access since it can no longer be uninstalled.
• If you sign in to Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1 with a local account, then you can only use the OneDrive app to browse your PC. To browse your OneDrive files while signed in to a local account in Windows 8.1, you’ll need to go to OneDrive.com.

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable OneDrive integration to allow or prevent apps and features from working with files on OneDrive for all users in Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

Note

If you disable OneDrive integration:

• Users can’t access OneDrive from the OneDrive app and file picker.
• Windows Store apps can’t access OneDrive using the WinRT API.
• OneDrive doesn’t appear in the navigation pane in File Explorer.
• OneDrive files aren’t kept in sync with the cloud.
• Users can’t automatically upload photos and videos from the camera roll folder.

This will not prevent users from being able to access files on their OneDrive online at OneDrive.com.

OPTION ONE
OPTION TWO

Attachments

Brink

• Messages 24,787
• Reaction score 845
• Points 113

ICit2lol

New Member

• Nov 14, 2013

• #2

My Computer

System One

Brink

Administrator

• Nov 14, 2013

• #3

My Computer

System One

mattman

Member

• Jan 21, 2014

• #4

My Computer

System One

Brink

Administrator

• Jan 21, 2014

• #5

Do you mean this below to remove SkyDrive from the navigation pane?

Hope this helps,
Shawn

My Computer

System One

LittleJay

New Member

• Mar 28, 2014

• #6

My Computer

System One

Egomainds

New Member

• Jun 8, 2014

• #7

My Computer

System One

snailpuke

New Member

• Oct 9, 2014

• #8

I was wondering if anyone has had an issue with re-enabling OneDrive on their system. I disabled it with the .reg file some time ago but decided I wanted it back. I used the enable .reg file then restarted the computer and next I opened the OneDrive Windows 8.1 app on the start screen. My problem is that if I click the OneDrive cloud icon in the task tray and select open the option to open OneDrive in windows explorer I get an error pop up which says "Sorry, we couldn’t open your OneDrive. Please try again, or try restarting your PC."

I’ve tried restarting but I’ve also looked at the processes to see if the OneDrive Sync Engine is running and sure enough it is then I checked to see if maybe the navigation pane had the icon back but that’s also missing. I can browse to the OneDrive folder and put stuff inside and it will sync so I’m not sure what’s going on.

I’m trying to get the navigation pane and the OneDrive task tray icon to function completely again. If you have any ideas or tips I could try I would really appreciate it.

My Computer

System One

Brink

Administrator

• Oct 9, 2014

• #9

Hello snailpuke, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Double check to see if you may have also disabled these below. See how it works after enabling them as well.

SkyDrive has been deeply integrated into Windows 8.1. Users who have chosen to sign-into Windows 8.1 using Microsoft account can sync PC settings across all devices using SkyDrive. In Windows 8.1, you don’t even need to install a dedicated SkyDrive desktop client, as you can manage your SkyDrive right from the File Explorer (Windows Explorer).

The other cool feature is that you can make files available offline as well by right-clicking on a file in the SkyDrive folder and then clicking Make available offline option. Windows 8.1 also lets you automatically upload your photos and videos from your camera roll folder to your SkyDrive account so that you can quickly share your photos and videos with others.

If you’re running Windows 8.1 on a small Solid State Drive (SSD) or on hard drive, and running out of disk space, you can free up disk space by moving SkyDrive folder from the system drive to a drive with enough disk space. The default location of SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 is C:\users\yourusername\SkyDrive\ (‘C’ is your Windows drive) and can be changed with a few mouse clicks.

Even though Windows 8.1 Preview didn’t include an option to move SkyDrive folder, users can easily change SkyDrive’s default location in Windows 8.1 RTM.

Complete the given below instructions to change SkyDrive folder location in Windows 8.1 RTM:

Step 1: Open up File Explorer (Windows Explorer).

Step 2: In the left-navigation pane, right-click on the SkyDrive icon, and click Properties to open SkyDrive Properties dialog.

Step 3: Switch to the Location tab.

Step 4: Here, click Move button to browse to the location where you wish to store all SkyDrive files and then Select Folder button.

Step 5: Click Apply button and click Yes button when you see the confirmation dialog to move SkyDrive folder to the new location. That’s it!

And if you’re not using SkyDrive and want to remove SkyDrive icon from the navigation pane of Windows 8.1 Explorer, follow the instructions in our how to remove SkyDrive folder from Windows 8.1 Explorer navigation pane guide.

OneDrive is the online document storage solution created by Microsoft which comes bundled as a free service with Windows 10. It can be used to store your documents and other data online in the cloud. It also offers synchronization of stored data across all your devices. “Files on-demand” is a feature of OneDrive which can display placeholder versions of online files in your local OneDrive directory even if they were not synchronized and downloaded. Today, we’ll see how to sync any folder to OneDrive so it will be available from any device connected with your Microsoft Account.

To make OneDrive sync a folder which is not located in your main OneDrive folder, we will create a directory junction. Directory junctions and other symbolic link types are covered in detail here:

I recommend you to read the article above if you are not familiar with symbolic links.

In short, a directory junction is a classic type of symbolic link, which does not support UNC paths (network paths that begin with \\) and relative paths. Directory junctions are supported in Windows 2000 and later NT-based Windows systems. A directory symbolic link on the other hand also supports UNC and relative paths. For today’s task, directory junction is suitable.

To sync any folder to OneDrive in Windows 10, do the following.

1. Open an elevated command prompt.
2. Type the following command: mklink /j “%UserProfile%\OneDrive\Folder name” “The full path to your folder” . You need to substitute the ‘Folder name’ portion with the desired name which will reproduce your folder in the OneDrive storage. Also, provide the correct path to the destination folder that you want to sync. For example:
   mklink /j “%UserProfile%\OneDrive\Winaero-folder” “c:\data\winaero” .
3. The specified folder will now be synced with your OneDrive.
4. To stop it from syncing, remove the ‘Folder name’ (e.g. ‘Winaero-folder’) from the OneDrive folder. This won’t remove your actual folder from your drive (e.g. ‘c:\data\winaero’).

See the following screenshot:

Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options:

Share this post

About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

SkyDrive has been deeply integrated into Windows 8.1 operating system. Windows 8.1 lets you access and browse SkyDrive files right from Windows Explorer, allows you automatically upload camera roll to your SkyDrive account, and also sync your desktop wallpaper and other settings across your Windows 8.1 machines.

But in order to use all above mentioned features, one need to sign in with a Microsoft account. That is, to be able to access your SkyDrive account in Windows 8.1, you have to sign-in using your Microsoft account and one can’t access the SkyDrive using a local account.

The official SkyDrive app that ships with Windows 8.1 doesn’t help you either. When launched, it asks you switch to Microsoft account. And as you probably know, the SkyDrive desktop client doesn’t work in Windows 8.1.

PC users who are on Windows 8.1 with a local account have to either switch to Microsoft account or use a web browser in order to access their SkyDrive files. Wouldn’t it be good if it was possible to access and browse SkyDrive from Windows 8.1’s Explorer with a local account?

Users who prefer not to sign-in with Microsoft account and still want to access their SkyDrive files right from Windows Explorer will be glad to know that it’s now possible to access SkyDrive files from Windows Explorer in Windows 8.1 with a small workaround.

In simple words, users who are using Windows 8.1 with a local account can also add SkyDrive to Windows Explorer and access files without having to install third-party tools.

Complete the given below instructions to add SkyDrive account to Windows 8.1’s explorer and access your files right from the Explorer.

Step 1: Sign-in to your SkyDrive account using a web browser installed on your Windows 8.1 PC.

Step 2: On the SkyDrive page, right-click on Files in the left-pane, and then click Copy link location (Firefox), Copy link address (Chrome) or Copy shortcut (Internet Explorer). This will copy the URL to the Files to the clipboard.

Step 3: Open Notepad and paste the URL that you have copied in the above step. Delete all characters in the URL except the last sixteen characters. That is, for instance, if the URL is you need to delete everything except 71xxxxxxxxxxxd8d (last 16 characters).

Now, add to the beginning of the URL. The URL to your SkyDrive Files should now look like this:

Copy the new URL.

Step 3: Next, launch Windows Explorer (This PC). You can quickly launch the Explorer by simultaneously pressing Windows + E keys.

Step 4: In the left-pane, right-click on This PC icon and then click Map network drive option to open Map Network Drive wizard.

Step 5: Here in the wizard, select the drive letter that you would like to assign to SkyDrive, and then in the Folder box paste the URL that you have copied in step 3 (the URL that you have obtained after adding *****).

Step 6: Finally, click Finish button. If you’re prompted to enter your username and password, type your email address and password that you use to sign in to SkyDrive and then click OK button. That’s it!

NOTE: If you’re attempting it on your own PC, you might want to enable the option titled Remember my credentials to avoid entering your email and password next time.

The newly mapped drive containing your all your SkyDrive file should now appears in your This PC (My Computer).

Chris Hoffman
Chris Hoffman
Editor-in-Chief

Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek. Read more.

The big cloud storage services — Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and others — all have the same problem. They can only synchronize folders inside your cloud storage folder. But there’s a way around this limitation: symbolic links.

Symbolic links are extremely useful for synchronizing any folder on your PC. You may want to synchronize some sort of configuration file that has to be in a specific location on your PC, for example.

Symbolic Links 101

Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X all have integrated tools for creating symbolic links. A symbolic link is just a “pointer” that points at a folder elsewhere. Programs on the computer see the link as if if it were the same as the real folder or files.

For example, let’s say you wanted to synchronize all the files in C:\Stuff with Dropbox, but you still want them in C:\Stuff. You could create a symbolic link in the Dropbox folder that points to C:\Stuff and Dropbox would synchronize everything inside the C:\Stuff folder.

That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, many cloud storage services no longer work properly with symbolic links. We can still use symbolic links in reverse, though. In our example, we’d move the entire C:\Stuff folder to Dropbox’s folder. We’d then create a symbolic link at C:\Stuff pointing to the Dropbox\Stuff folder. Dropbox would synchronize the files in the folder and the programs that need the folder at C:\Stuff would function normally. We first covered this solution when we looked at how to synchronize any folder with OneDrive on Windows 8.1.

Windows

First, open a Command Prompt window as Administrator. On Windows 8 or 10, press Windows Key + X and click Command Prompt (Admin). On Windows 7, open the Start menu, perform a search for Command Prompt, right-click the Command Prompt shortcut, and select Run as Administrator.

Type the following commands into the Command Prompt window. In the first command, replace “C:\Path\To\ExternalFolder” with the path to the folder you want to sync and “C:\Users\NAME\Dropbox” with the path to your cloud storage folder. This command will move the entire folder to your cloud storage folder.

Create a symbolic link at the original location. Programs that look for the folder at its original location will find it there. Any changes they make will be written to your cloud storage folder.

Linux

On Linux, you should just be able to create a symbolic link with the ln -s command. You shouldn’t have to move any files around. Open a terminal and run the following command:

To synchronize an individual file, specify the path to that file instead of the path to a folder. If this method doesn’t work, first move the external folder to inside your cloud storage folder, and then create a symbolic link in reverse — like you would on Windows.

Mac OS X

You can use the same command on Mac. First, open a terminal window — press Command + Space, type Terminal into the Spotlight search dialog, and press Enter. Run the following command, filling in the appropriate path:

Google Drive won’t accept symbolic links created with the above command, but other services might. To make this work with Google Drive, move the folder you want to synchronize inside your cloud storage folder and then create the symbolic link in reverse:

mv “/path/to/ExternalFolder” “/Users/name/Google Drive/”

ln -s “/Users/name/Google Drive/ExternalFolder” “/path/to/ExternalFolder”

Synchronize External Folders

You can use this trick to synchronize folders outside your cloud storage folder, too. For example, let’s say you have a C:\Stuff directory. You’ve moved it to your cloud storage folder, so you can access it under “Stuff” in your Dropbox folder and on the web. If you have Dropbox set up on multiple PCs, you’ll find your Stuff folder in the Dropbox folder. You can create the same symbolic links on each computer and the contents of your C:\Stuff folder will appear the same on all your PCs.

Some third-party programs will assist you in creating symbolic links for these services, but you can do it all with the tools included in your operating system. We don’t like recommending such third-party utilities when we can help it.

Some programs do allow you to synchronize any folder to the cloud, of course. SpiderOak — also nice because it’s fully encrypted so they can’t even see what you’re storing there — allows you to choose any folder on your PC to sync without messing with symbolic links, for example.

• › Why Professionals Will Actually Want a 2021 MacBook Pro
• › How to Add Images to Questions in Google Forms
• › How to Delete Your Photos on Facebook
• › Razer Thinks You Want a PC Gaming Headset That Vibrates
• › How to Get a Link to a Photo or Video on Instagram

Chris Hoffman
Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek.
Read Full Bio »