Sync OneDrive Files to your Computer

Quick reference

• 00:04 So far in this section, we've very much been focusing on how we can access
• 00:09 our files through OneDrive online, but I did mention a couple of lessons
• 00:13 ago that we can access our OneDrive files through File Explorer.
• 00:18 Because if you think about it this way, if you're sitting at your desk,
• 00:22 you don't really want to have to log in to your Microsoft 365 online portal in order
• 00:27 to access any of the files that you have stored in OneDrive.
• 00:30 So to make it a bit easier, we can synchronize our OneDrive with our PC and
• 00:35 access all of our files and folders from within File Explorer,
• 00:39 which makes the whole process a lot simpler.
• 00:41 So how do we actually get that to synchronize?
• 00:45 Now before we get on to that topic,
• 00:47 let me show you very quickly what my File Explorer looks like.
• 00:50 So I have mine open right now and
• 00:52 you'll notice at the top I have Deb- Personal and Deb- Train IT Now Limited.
• 00:57 That's my company.
• 00:59 Now I have two here because I have a personal Outlook account for
• 01:03 my personal email, and that is simply a free account.
• 01:07 Now it's worth noting that even with a free outlook.com account or
• 01:11 if you're as old as me, a hotmail.com account,
• 01:14 you get a certain amount of free OneDrive storage included in that.
• 01:19 And at the time of writing this course, that was 5 gig.
• 01:23 But I also have another account, and this one is a business account.
• 01:27 So this is an account that I pay for.
• 01:29 I have a business standard subscription, and
• 01:31 this is where I store all of my business related files.
• 01:35 So you can have two separate OneDrive accounts on your PC.
• 01:39 Now what you see in here in File Explorer will basically reflect what you see in
• 01:43 your online portal.
• 01:45 So if I click on Documents, you can see I have a few folders and
• 01:49 I have a few files in here.
• 01:51 So let's jump across to the online portal for this account and
• 01:54 make sure that everything is the same.
• 01:56 So I'm back in the portal now and
• 01:59 I've actually switched to my Train IT Now Limited account.
• 02:03 And you can see here I'm in the Documents folder and
• 02:06 I have exactly the same folders and files that you can see in File Explorer.
• 02:10 And if I was to create a new document just here, let's just do a quick Word document,
• 02:15 and we'll just type Test in here.
• 02:17 We'll give it a quick name, I'm going to call it Deb Test, and hit Enter.
• 02:22 You can see that that's saving back to the cloud, so I can now see that document
• 02:27 sitting just here, but it's also going to synchronize to File Explorer.
• 02:31 So let's jump back across there and see if that's worked.
• 02:34 And I can see yes, there is the file.
• 02:37 I can double click to open this file as I normally would, and
• 02:41 I can carry on working within this file.
• 02:43 And any changes that I make are automatically saved back up to the cloud.
• 02:48 Now with all of this activity, all of this saving back to the cloud,
• 02:52 it's sometimes a good idea to be able to see the synchronization status and
• 02:56 other information about your OneDrive.
• 02:59 And what you'll notice is that if you go back to your desktop and
• 03:03 take a look at your taskbar,
• 03:05 notice over on the right-hand side I have two little cloud icons.
• 03:09 And that's because I have two OneDrive accounts.
• 03:12 So for example, this one here, the blue one,
• 03:15 is the one that represents my business OneDrive account.
• 03:19 Now if I click on this, this is going to show me if all of my files are synced,
• 03:23 if I've got any errors or issues that I need to resolve, and
• 03:27 I can see the files that have been synced recently.
• 03:30 I can also click on Open folder, if I want to go straight to OneDrive online.
• 03:35 I can view them online or I can take a look at my recycle bin.
• 03:41 Now, syncing in OneDrive is an automatic process.
• 03:44 It's not something that you have to invoke.
• 03:47 There is a button within the online portal that says Sync, and
• 03:51 we saw that a bit earlier.
• 03:53 So if for some reason you're finding that your files haven't automatically synced,
• 03:57 you can manually sync your files as well.
• 03:59 Now the final thing of note in here is the little cog icon in the top right-hand
• 04:03 corner, this is where we're going to find all of our OneDrive settings.
• 04:08 Now, something that's important to note here is if we click on Settings and
• 04:13 the Account tab, this is where we can unlink our PC if we want to.
• 04:17 So maybe you decide that you don't want to have your files synchronized to
• 04:21 File Explorer, you just want to have them accessible through the online portal.
• 04:25 You can click Unlink this PC in order to do that.
• 04:29 Also this is where you come if you have more than one OneDrive account.
• 04:33 As I mentioned, I have two, I have a personal one and
• 04:37 I also have this business one.
• 04:38 So you can click on Add Account, and it's going to walk you through the process of
• 04:43 adding that second account in, which will then add the second cloud icon in
• 04:48 the status bar where you can access your settings for your personal OneDrive.
• 04:53 Another thing to know is that you don't necessarily have to
• 04:56 synchronize all of your folders to your PC.
• 04:59 So if you don't have a great deal of space on your PC and you don't want to sync
• 05:03 absolutely everything that you have saved in OneDrive,
• 05:06 you could click on Choose folders.
• 05:08 And then go through and specifically select which folders you're interested
• 05:14 in having access to on your PC, and keep everything else in cloud storage.

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