Windows 10: Help with backing up files using FileHistory that are also syncing with OneDrive

I recently used Onedrive to sync my desktop files online. This somewhat annoyingly changed all paths for my files and directories to include 'OneDrive'. That didn't seem to be too much of a problem. But now, when I try to back up my system with FileHistory, the directories that are syncing with Onedrive do not back up to my external hard drive. I have tried altering FileHistory to include the directories that have OneDrive in the path name, but only alternative directories are backed up. Please advise.

:)

 

OneDrive Placeholders are coming back, now called On-Demand Sync




"At Ignite 2016, Microsoft has just announced that it is bringing Placeholders back to OneDrive on Windows 10. Now, they are not called Placeholders anymore — Microsoft is renaming the feature to “On-Demand Sync” which makes a lot more sense than “Placeholders”.

The company demoed this feature at Microsoft Ignite today, and it works just like it used to previously. As you can see in the screenshot above, the files stored in OneDrive weighed in around 9GB, but the actual size on disk was only around 3MB which is really neat. Of course, this feature isn’t anything new as it was available back in the Windows 8 days. However, Microsoft removed the feature with Windows 10, and after lots of waiting, they are finally coming back.

In case you are not familiar with OneDrive Placeholders, it’s a pretty neat feature which lets you see all of your OneDrive files on your computer — but they are not actually downloaded on your PC. When you open them, OneDrive will download the files on-demand, saving your local space which is really useful, especially if you have a PC that doesn’t have a lot of storage.

While Microsoft didn’t announce when exactly On-Demand Sync will be available to OneDrive users, we suspect it will be available with Windows 10 Redstone 2 — which is expected to arrive early next year. "

OneDrive Placeholders are coming back, now called On-Demand Sync - MSPoweruser

 

Files not syncing to OneDrive

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I understand that you are facing issues not syncing properly with OneDrive.

I suggest you to refer the troubleshooting steps in the article
Fix OneDrive sync problems and check if it works for you.

For more information, you can check the article to
Sync files with the OneDrive sync client in Windows.

If you are still facing the issue, I suggest you to get in touch with the OneDrive support team.

Sign in to OneDrive.com from any browser, click the ‘?’ help icon on the top banner of the page and select
Email OneDrive support. Submit your question and follow the prompts to request support.

Hope it helps.

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

File History doesn't back up the 'Documents' library, but does back up my local 'OneDrive' - implications for FileHistory

Hello Ruth

Well, I expected a standard reply. No, the info in the link you provided doesn't help, I've read it previously as well as many other documents and postings about Filehistory/backups/onedrive.

The basic problem, as explained in my initial post, is this:-

( I'm using Windows 10 by the way).

As far as I can tell, File History doesn't back up folders and files that are in the Users\username\documents folder (which is the folder where the vast majority of personal files are kept) even though file history is supposed to save all libraries, and
that documents folder is a library. It will only back them up if they have been moved to Onedrive (location Users\username\onedrive\documents) and then only if they are synced.

So if you use filehistory expecting your unsynced onedrive files, or files that are in user\username\documents (i.e on the local PC only, not one one drive) you are going to be in for a surprise when and if it comes to restoring those files.

The only way round this that I can see at the moment is to have sufficient Onedrive space to put ALL of your files that are in users\username\documents onto Onedrive and have them all synced. If you have more than MS's free Onedrive space (15GB at present
fo documents) you'll have to buy more space. Maybe that's the MS plan.

It would be helpful if you could tell us what the MS backup philosophy is and how to go about achieving it so that MS customers are clear about what gets backed up and where. All I see currently on this subject is messy incomplete information that is not
very useful, Please, can MS customers have some clarity?

Oh, and what's with this onedrive 'feature' 'Choose which files to sync'? Surely it would be better to show ALL files (in Windows Explorer) that are on onedrive and use colour coding (green for synced, red for not synced) so that you can see at a glance
what the sync situation is, rather than having to rummage around in a onedrive file tree to find out. Many people have made this point besides me - it's a no-brainer.

Thank you