Skip to content
Tutorials

How to Back Up Any Folder With OneDrive

OneDrive only syncs what is inside its own folder. The common fix, a symbolic link inside OneDrive pointing at the folder elsewhere, is unsupported and stops syncing changes. The reliable way is the reverse: move the folder into OneDrive and leave a directory junction at the old path, so every program that used it keeps working.

October 21, 20266 min readby Artur Rios

OneDrive backs up what is inside its own folder, usually C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive, and nothing else. Its built-in folder backup extends that to a fixed set of folders: Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos.1 A folder anywhere else, say D:\Projects, is not backed up unless it is moved into OneDrive, and moving it breaks every program, shortcut and script that expects it at D:\Projects.

The trick that gets passed around is to leave the folder where it is and put a symbolic link to it inside OneDrive. That does not work reliably, for reasons explained below. What works is the same idea pointed the other way: move the folder into OneDrive, where it syncs like any other folder, and leave a link at the old path, so everything that used D:\Projects still finds it there.

The commands below were run on Windows 11 Pro on 21 October 2026, from a normal, non-administrator prompt.

Step 1: Find the two paths

You need two paths:

  • The folder to back up. This tutorial uses D:\Projects.
  • Your OneDrive folder. Windows stores it in the OneDrive environment variable. In PowerShell, $env:OneDrive prints it; in Command Prompt, echo %OneDrive%. On a default setup it is C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive.

The folder will end up at C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive\Projects. Make sure the drive OneDrive lives on has room for it, because the files now physically move there.

Step 2: Move the folder into OneDrive

Close every program that has files open in D:\Projects: editors, terminals sitting in that directory, anything that runs from it. Then move the folder. Dragging it in Explorer with Shift held moves it instead of copying it; from PowerShell:

powershell 
Move-Item "D:\Projects" "$env:OneDrive\Projects"

When the move finishes, D:\Projects must no longer exist, since the next step creates something with that name. OneDrive starts uploading the folder straight away.

Step 3: Leave a junction at the old path

A directory junction is an entry in the file system that redirects one path to another folder on the same machine. Programs that open D:\Projects\app are sent to C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive\Projects\app without noticing.

In Command Prompt:

bat 
mklink /j "D:\Projects" "C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive\Projects"

The link comes first and the target second, which is easy to get backwards. mklink answers with Junction created for D:\Projects <<===>> C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive\Projects.2

mklink is built into Command Prompt and does not exist in PowerShell. From PowerShell, either call it through cmd /c mklink /j ... or use the PowerShell equivalent:3

powershell 
New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "D:\Projects" -Target "$env:OneDrive\Projects"

Neither needs an administrator prompt. Check the result with:

powershell 
Get-Item "D:\Projects" | Select-Object LinkType, Target

which shows Junction and the OneDrive path. In Explorer, D:\Projects now has a small arrow on its icon, and opening it shows the same files as the OneDrive folder, because they are the same files.

mklink /d creates a directory symbolic link instead, and for this purpose either works. The junction is the better default for two reasons:

  • No special permission. Creating a symbolic link needs an elevated prompt, unless Developer Mode is turned on in Windows settings, which lifts the requirement.4 A junction needs neither.
  • Fewer surprises. A junction always points at an absolute path on a local drive, which is exactly this case. Symbolic links can also point at relative paths and network shares, which is flexibility this setup does not need.

Step 4: Keep the files on the device

With OneDrive’s Files On-Demand and Windows Storage Sense both turned on, files that have not been opened for a while become online-only placeholders, which are downloaded again when opened.5 Opening one through the junction works, but a build tool or backup script that walks thousands of files will trigger thousands of downloads, or fail offline. For a folder that programs read from, right-click OneDrive\Projects in Explorer and choose Always keep on this device.

The approach most guides give is the reverse of the one above: leave D:\Projects where it is and create a link inside OneDrive pointing at it, with mklink /d "C:\Users\<you>\OneDrive\Projects" "D:\Projects".

Microsoft’s list of OneDrive restrictions says it plainly: OneDrive does not support syncing through symbolic links or junction points.6 In practice the setup half works, which is what makes it misleading. When the link is created, or when OneDrive starts, it uploads what it finds behind the link, so the first sync looks fine. After that, new files, edits, renames and deletions inside the linked folder are not picked up until OneDrive is restarted.7 The likely cause is how Windows reports changes: Microsoft documents that a program watching a folder that contains symbolic links is told when the links change, not when the files they point to change.8 So the backup quietly falls behind, which is the worst way for a backup to fail.

There is a second cost. OneDrive’s folder backup refuses to protect a folder that contains a junction or symbolic link,1 so a link placed inside Documents, for example, can block backing up Documents itself.

With the link outside OneDrive and the real files inside it, OneDrive never sees a link at all. It watches an ordinary folder, and the junction is only something the rest of the system walks through.

Undoing it

To put things back as they were, remove the junction, then move the folder back. In PowerShell:

powershell 
cmd /c rmdir "D:\Projects"
Move-Item "$env:OneDrive\Projects" "D:\Projects"

A plain rmdir on a junction removes only the junction; the files behind it are untouched. Command Prompt’s own move cannot do the second line: it refuses to move a folder to another drive with “Access is denied”, which is why both moves in this tutorial use PowerShell’s Move-Item or Explorer. Do not add /s, and do not delete the junction’s contents in Explorer: that deletes the real files in OneDrive, and OneDrive then deletes them from the cloud too.

References

  1. Microsoft. (n.d.). Back up your folders with OneDrive. In Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/back-up-your-folders-with-onedrive-d61a7930-a6fb-4b95-b28a-6552e77c3057 ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Microsoft. (n.d.). mklink. In Windows commands. Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/mklink ↩︎

  3. Microsoft. (n.d.). New-Item. In PowerShell documentation. Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/new-item ↩︎

  4. Microsoft. (2016, December 2). Symlinks in Windows 10! Windows Developer Blog. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/ ↩︎

  5. Microsoft. (n.d.). Save disk space with OneDrive Files On-Demand for Windows. In Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-windows-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e ↩︎

  6. Microsoft. (n.d.). Restrictions and limitations in OneDrive and SharePoint. In Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restrictions-and-limitations-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa ↩︎

  7. Core Technologies Consulting. (2023, August 9). OneDrive doesn’t sync directory junctions. The Core Technologies Blog. https://www.coretechnologies.com/blog/onedrive/onedrive-directory-junctions ↩︎

  8. Microsoft. (n.d.). FindFirstChangeNotificationA function (fileapi.h). In Win32 API documentation. Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/fileapi/nf-fileapi-findfirstchangenotificationa ↩︎

Related reading
Common Windows Issues and How I Fix Them October 21, 2026 · 4 min How to Use PlantUML With Markdown October 21, 2026 · 6 min