Cannot backup OneDrive document folder to Windows Backup or my external drive (using WD Smartware).

Question

I can no longer backup OneDrive Documents folder (on my PC) to Windows backup. Neither can I backup that folder to an external drive using WD Smartware.

MS has prevented users from backing up documents to anyplace other than OneDrive. This is not acceptable.

Answer 1

SOLVED - Had same problem but saw that no one posted the answer. Although I'm sure many here have found the answer elsewhere, I will post it for posterity.

To solve this, you need to know 2 things:

#1 - when you do a File History Backup, if a folder is seen as blank, it is skipped over.

#2 - OneDrive (The program) will either save a hard copy on your computer, OR save a "virtual file link" in it's place to save you hard drive space.

Therefore, if you do not have a hard copy in your computer of your OneDrive cloud files, the backup will interpret that the OneDrive folder is empty and skip over it. 

Solution: Find the OneDrive icon found in right side of the task bar. Click on it and then click the "menu dots" on the top right. Choose "Settings" in the menu. A dialogue box will open titled, "Microsoft OneDrive". Under the Settings tab, and in section "Files On Demand" you must UN-SELECT the box for "Save space and download files as you use them". This will allow you to keep a hard copy on your computer hard drive and thus be able to back it up to an External Hard Drive using your File History Backup feature within Windows.

Answer 2

I have tried all the possible ways to auto backup the onedrive folder. 

1. using the file history backup and restore, the option is there to back up the onedrive folder, but when i am viewing the backup files its not present there.
2. Using backup and restore from Control panel, then choosing the option " let me choose " after that when i am expanding the c/user/user i am not able to see the onedrive folder , other then that i can see all the user folder like desktop / music / pic etc.

please can someone highlight on this

 

scroll back up to the post by Michael M13

You'll need to turn off onedrive files on demand option and also get those files back into the folders. Several ways to do this but the easy way might be to right click the folders and read the context menu where you should see an option to always keep these files on this computer.

I've just run into this too. I have a computer that I'm trying to setup Windows Backup to backup to the USB drive. When I select "Let ME Choose" also, there's no OneDrive folder that I can see. I've even enabled hidden files. I've tried to remove the desktop.ini and other system file from the OneDrive folder to get Windows 10 to think it's a regular folder, but that didn't work. I've even tried selecting the whole user profile folder to backup. But that didn't work either. It backed up all data in the profile folder EXCEPT the OneDrive folder.

And, my OneDrive folder has local files stored in it since I'm not connected to the internet and I'm still able to open all files locally. So the folder is not empty. Microsoft is intentionally hiding the OneDrive folder from other software access. Perhaps it's a security "feature"? This is mighty annoying not being able to backup my own files outside of an internet connected OneDrive.

EDIT: I've even tried adding OneDrive into my Library since Windows Backup can backup everything in the Library. But keep getting an error in the windows]system32\config\systemprofile directory.

Answer 3

SOLVED - Had same problem but saw that no one posted the answer. Although I'm sure many here have found the answer elsewhere, I will post it for posterity.

To solve this, you need to know 2 things:

#1 - when you do a File History Backup, if a folder is seen as blank, it is skipped over.

#2 - OneDrive (The program) will either save a hard copy on your computer, OR save a "virtual file link" in it's place to save you hard drive space.

Therefore, if you do not have a hard copy in your computer of your OneDrive cloud files, the backup will interpret that the OneDrive folder is empty and skip over it. 

Solution: Find the OneDrive icon found in right side of the task bar. Click on it and then click the "menu dots" on the top right. Choose "Settings" in the menu. A dialogue box will open titled, "Microsoft OneDrive". Under the Settings tab, and in section "Files On Demand" you must UN-SELECT the box for "Save space and download files as you use them". This will allow you to keep a hard copy on your computer hard drive and thus be able to back it up to an External Hard Drive using your File History Backup feature within Windows.

This only works if you are happy to (or have enough room) to store all the files in your onedrive on you local drive. Microsoft needs to fix this.

Answer 4

This is not a WD issue.

1. The WD software simply will not copy the Documents folder within OneDrive (local, on my PC).
2. File History backup also will not copy the Documents folder within Onedrive (local).
3. Even MS's SyncToy will not copy the Documents folder within OneDrive (local).
4. Yes I tried changing the name of the Documents folder.

Every other local OneDrive folder, Music, Pictures, etc., backs up no problem.

Of course I can and have backed up via copy and paste but that's not automatic and, therefore, not an adequate solution.

This is a OneDrive or Windows issue. MS needs to address this ASAP. Thank you.

Answer 5

See:

https://pureinfotech.com/fix-file-history-backup-onedrive-windows-10/

Basically, just uncheck the box below “Files On-Demand" in OneDrive Settings (Settings Tab) to allow for backing up OneDrive with Microsoft's FileHistory.