Sync Any Folder to OneDrive in Windows 10  

Brink said:

It would certainly be easier if they could save directly to OneDrive, and have it sync normally to the online OneDrive. This way they could just pick up where they left off on the new laptop.

If this is not possible, then yeah you could sync the individual locations to separate folders in OneDrive.

They're really not making it easy.

They're very computer illiterate so they're afraid of moving stuff around.
They basically want an almost identical setup in terms of directories.
I have to basically do all this with little change to their daily/normal operation.

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So I had a few additional questions:

• Which is better for the initial "back up" process?:
  1) move files to onedrive and have symbolik link on local drive that points to onedrive
  2) symbolic link on onedrive that points to local folder
  I've read mixed opinions on this all over.
  
• If on the new computer, I created symbolic links that would point to the onedrive folders, I'm assuming there would be issues if OneDrive would be disconnected (company stops using it, they leave the company).
  What would be the best way to change these folders from symlinks to normal folders?

Brink said:

Either would work, but you would also have to setup the links again on the new laptop.

I think having the source located on OneDrive would make it easier to access from any PC, and prevents losing the files if something should happen to the PC.

You can set OneDrive to have a copy of the files to always be saved on both OneDrive and on the local PC for offline use. This way if OneDrive get unsupported by the company, you will still always also have the copy on the local PC.

Mark OneDrive Files as Always keep on this device in Windows 10

Thank you for the help. I'll report back on how this goes.

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So some of the files/folders I'm moving are from the User Library. So stuff like Searches, Videos, Music, etc...
These folders can be set in the properties to point to a different location (under Location). So I'm guessing this could easily be set to point to a onedrive location. Do you know of any way to automate this process?

After that, I can definitely create a symlink at the original location to point to that new onedrive library.
This also works on the new computer, with the exact same steps.

Brink said:

I'm not aware of a way to automate it.

I would think on the new computer, it may make it easier to set everything to save directly to a OneDrive folder location instead of having to mess with links.

That's too bad, but thanks anyways!

I agree. I'm going to see what I can do about this.
Thanks once again for all the help Brink!

Just reporting back on an update. Here's my game plan for these user shell folders

1) Install, login to OneDrive

2) You can change the registry values of user shell folders (desktop, documents, pictures, videos, favorites, etc..) at: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Now that I know where to find the value, it's simple since I know how to automate that in a powershell script

Code:

Set-ItemProperty -Path filepath -Name propertyname -Value anewvalue

So when filling this in, it should look like

Code:

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" -Name "Favorites" -Value "%USERPROFILE%\OneDrive folder\Favorites"

3) Normally, this should be it for the backup. All these folders will now point inside Onedrive. But there's a chance for user error. They may try to access these folders via the local drive (going through C:\users).
But these folders will no longer exist there.

So I'll make symbolic links there for each folder that point to the respective folder in OneDrive.

Code:

cmd /c mklink  /d "C:\Users\%username%\Favorites" "C:\Users\%username%\OneDrive folder\Favorites"

4) I can now do the exact same thing on the new pc and the user won't be any wiser. It'll just look like their files/folders are always synced.

I'm still doing some messing around and testing on it. But I think this is the general idea that should work.

Brink said:

Ok. Good.

The glimmer marks (three little blue lines) seen next to a file or folder indicate that the file is new. This would indicate the file have successfully synced despite the source folder showing "Sync Pending".

What do the OneDrive icons mean? - OneDrive

You might check this below to see if it may help with the stuck "Sync Pending" on the source folder.

OneDrive is stuck on "Sync pending" - OneDrive

Sorry for the late reply though. I was pretty busy with my university these days.

So I have tried going to those sites, and there was one solution which suggests me that I should delete the Office Document Cache. I tried to, but it wouldn't work anyway. The "Sync Pending" status still shows, though it still appears to be synced successfully on OneDrive site when I logged in my account.