OneDrive PC Backup
Please note that this guide will only work with Microsoft Windows. If you have a Macintosh computer please contact the HelpDesk at ext. 5555 for assistance.
Introduction
OneDrive has a new feature that will automatically back up all of your documents, photos, and desktop files. Enabling this feature should back up most if not all of your saved files without you having to copy and paste anything over to the OneDrive folder manually. In brief, most everyone saves documents to their PC’s documents folder and pictures to pictures. What this OneDrive feature does is take all of the files in your PC’s documents, photos, and desktop locations and uploads them to the cloud so they are backed up. You don’t have to move anything. The exception to this is if you store things outside these default locations. For example if you had documents stored in your downloads folder it would not back up those and you would need to move them to OneDrive manually.
Turning on the PC Backup
To start, we will need to locate and open the OneDrive app. The app should be running and located in your system tray (The rightmost part of your Windows taskbar). It may show automatically or be hidden in the carrot icon. The OneDrive app is a blue cloud icon, click this to open OneDrive.
If you see a grey cloud icon instead of a blue then your OneDrive is not set up and signed in. Simply sign-in or read our OneDrive Setup Guide before continuing this one.
Once you click the icon, the OneDrive App will open. Click on the Help & Settings button.
Then click Settings.
In the new window that appears, click the Backup tab and then select Manage backup.
In the new window, select all of the options if you want to back up all three locations and then click Start Backup.
OneDrive will let you know that the upload of your documents to the cloud has started. If you click the blue View sync progress button you will be directed to the OneDrive app so you can monitor the process if desired.
In the OneDrive app you can see that the sync for this test user is completed. They had one file on the desktop that was backed up.
If you would like to view more detailed sync information or troubleshoot any errors that arise please view the Monitoring OneDrive Sync Progress & Troubleshooting guide.