One Drive "backup" Help

Question

One Drive "backup" Help

Anonymous

I'm realizing as others have in some help forums I've read, that OneDrive hasn't been working as a "back up" but instead has been lifting my files off my hard drive and hosting them. I came upon an issue when needing to upgrade to more storage but instead decided to just delete large files that I expected were on my hard drive already since that is where I placed them to begin with. My questions are, is this a normal function of OneDrive and second, how do I go about keeping my files on my hard drive (my original copies) and using One Drive as a true back up without the deletion from One Drive causing my originals to be deleted? Thoughts?

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Answer 1

OneDrive Backup works by syncing content between OneDrive and your local folders. If you want to have some files on your local PC but not on OneDrive, move that file to folder that is not synced to OneDrive (outside Desktop, Pictures, Documents, ...).

Also, very important is to understand OneDrive Files On-demand. To save space on your local PC, some files are available only on OneDrive, although you can "see them" on your PC. When you click on such a file, it will download it first from OneDrive. Please check this article for full explanation: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-windows-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e

You have an option to always keep all files synced (Backup) to OneDrive on your local PC.

Bottom line, OneDrive backup is great, and it can be used as a backup if your PC crashes, if something happens to your file (there is a recycle bin on OneDrive, and also you have version history), etc. However, it's not "traditional" backup where you backup files from time to time. OneDrive is doing that all the time by syncing.

Hope this helps.