Back up your Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders with OneDrive

Productivity apps, 1 TB of OneDrive, and advanced security.

You can back up your important folders (your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders) on your Windows PC with OneDrive PC folder backup, so they’re protected and available on other devices. If you haven’t already set up OneDrive on your computer, see Sync files with OneDrive in Windows. There’s no extra cost for PC folder backup (up to 5 GB of files without a subscription). See OneDrive plans.

Note: If you’re surprised that your files are saving to OneDrive, see Files save to OneDrive by default in Windows 10.

Set up PC folder backup

If you’re prompted to back up your important folders (Desktop, Documents, and Pictures), select the prompt to start the folder backup wizard.

If you didn’t see the prompt or you already closed the wizard, select the white or blue cloud icon in the Windows notification area, and then select Help & Settings > Settings, then Backup > Manage backup.

In the Back up your folders dialog, make sure the folders that you want to back up are selected.

Select Start backup.

You can close the dialog box while your files sync to OneDrive. Or, to watch your files sync, select View upload progress. If you already closed the dialog, to open the OneDrive activity center, select the white or blue cloud in the notification area.

Access your backed up folders on any device

When your files finish syncing to OneDrive, they’re backed up and you can access them from anywhere in Documents, Desktop, or Pictures. When you back up your Desktop folder, the items on your desktop roam with you to your other PC desktops where you’re running OneDrive.

You can back up a maximum of 5 GB of files in OneDrive for free, or up to 1 TB with a Microsoft 365 subscription.

If you’re signed in to the OneDrive sync app on your computer, you can use File Explorer to access your OneDrive. You can also use the OneDrive mobile app to access your folders on any device.

Manage or stop PC folder backup

To stop or start backing up your folders in OneDrive, update your folder selections in OneDrive Settings.

Open OneDrive settings (select the white or blue cloud icon in your notification area, and then select Help & Settings > Settings.)

In Settings, select Backup > Manage backup.

To start backing up a folder, select any folder that doesn’t say Files backed up, and then select Start backup.

To stop backing up a folder, select Stop backup, and confirm your request. See important notes below.

When you stop backing up a folder, the files that were already backed up by OneDrive stay in the OneDrive folder, and will no longer appear in your device folder.

In the folder that you stopped backing up, you’ll see an icon titled Where are my files that’s a shortcut to your folders in OneDrive. To access your files, select the icon to open the folder in OneDrive.

If you want those files back in your device folder and not in OneDrive, move them manually from the OneDrive folder back to your device folder. Note that any new files you add to that folder on your device won’t be backed up by OneDrive after you stop the backup.

To move the files. select Where are my files to open the folder in OneDrive, then select the files that you want to move to your device folder, and drag them to that location.

Fix problems with PC folder backup

Here are a list of errors you might see when you set up PC folder backup and how to resolve them:

The following file type can’t be protected: Outlook database files (.pst).

Folder protection is unavailable: A common reason for this error is that important folders on PCs that are connected to a domain can’t be protected in a personal OneDrive account (when you’re signed in with a Microsoft account). For info about data protection solutions, contact your IT administrator. You shouldn’t have this issue with a work or school account.

File exceeds the maximum path length: Make sure the entire file path, including the file name, contains fewer than 260 characters. An example of a file path is:
C:\Users\ \Pictures\Saved\2017\December\Holiday\NewYears\Family…
To resolve this, shorten the name of your file or the name of subfolders in OneDrive, or select a sub-folder that’s closer to the top-level folder.

File exceeds the maximum file size: OneDrive can’t sync files over 250GB. Remove these files from the folder you want to protect and then try again.

The file name isn’t allowed in OneDrive: File names can’t start with a space or include any of these characters: \ : / * ? » | . Please move or rename the file to continue.

The folder isn’t selected for syncing: The folder with the error is not syncing to your PC. To resolve this error, open OneDrive Settings (right-click the white or blue cloud icon in your notification area, and select Settings), select Choose Folders, and then make sure the folder you want to protect is selected. If Pictures is showing this error, make sure that Pictures, Screenshots, and Camera Roll are all selected (or don’t exist). It’s also possible that the OneDrive folder has a different name from the Windows important folder.

Important folders aren’t in the default locations: The folder with the error contains another important folder and can’t be protected until the contained folder is moved. Important folders that may be contained within the folder include: Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Screenshots, Camera Roll, or the OneDrive folder.

An unknown error occurred, with error code 0x80070005: If you receive error code 0x80070005, the «Prohibit User from manually redirecting Profile Folders» group policy is enabled. You may find that the files from the folders you selected were moved to identically named folders in your OneDrive folder, and the original locations are empty. Move the folder contents back to the original locations and ask your administrator whether the policy can be changed.

Folder contains a reparse point (junction point or symlink): The folder you want to protect contains a special file type that links parts of the file system together. These items can’t be protected. To protect the folder, remove the file causing the issue.

Post PC folder backup: OneDrive tries to automatically re-open notebooks that were previously open. In rare cases, some notebooks may not be automatically loaded in the OneNote desktop app after PC folder backup. Workaround for this issue is to reopen the notebooks in the OneNote app using File > Open.

Caution: Some applications may depend on these links to function properly. Remove only the links that you know are safe to modify.

Learn more

If Microsoft Outlook or OneDrive is misbehaving and your PST file is in OneDrive, you might try removing the Outlook .pst data file from OneDrive.

Need more help?

Get online help
See more support pages for OneDrive and OneDrive for work or school.
For the OneDrive mobile app, see Troubleshoot OneDrive mobile app problems.

Contact Support
If you still need help, contact support through your browser or shake your mobile device while you’re in the OneDrive app.

Got feedback?
OneDrive UserVoice is your place to suggest the features you’d like to see us add to OneDrive. While we can’t guarantee any specific features or timelines, we will respond to every suggestion that gets at least 500 votes.

Best Free Way to Backup PC to Cloud in Windows 10/8/7

You will find the best free way to backup PC to cloud in Windows 7, 8, 10? Just follow the detailed steps to backup computer to Google Drive automatically.

By Ailsa / Last Updated December 23, 2020

Why Backup PC to Cloud?

Nowadays, there are many cloud drives available for you to store data online, including Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, and other clouds. Why backup computer to cloud? The following reasons could be one of yours:

Reduce Cost: for personal use, your hard disk in Windows 7/8/10 shows low disk space error, and don’t intend to pay for another relatively expensive external storage device to save files. It’s affordable for business use especially there a large amount of data should be saved.

Easy to Access: the files stored in the cloud are easy to access anytime and anywhere while the data in the Windows computer is kind of difficult to access from another device unless shared it on the same LAN.

Multiple Guarantees: the offsite backup solution safeguards your data, even your computer damaged somehow, you could restore data from cloud to a new location to make it safe, you will not lose them.

Automatic Backup: after you set a backup, it will automatically and continuously backup data to the cloud whenever you’re connected to the Internet.

Before backup PC to cloud drive, choosing a suitable cloud drive is much important for you.

Which Cloud Drive is Suitable for You?

Here we will compare the most common cloud drives, including price and cloud storage, here are the charts for the cloud comparison.

For personal use, If you would like to use more free storage space, Google Drive (Google One) will be your best choice. Or large amounts of efficient storage space with a affordable cost, then Dropbox will be your best fit.

Google Drive

Free

15 GB

Microsoft OneDrive

Free

5 GB

Dropbox

Free

2 GB

Box

free

10 GB

For business use, these cloud drives provide you more professional tools and services for you to manage business data as well. Hence, simply comparing their cloud storage space and price is relatively one-sided, and it should rely on your demands.

Google Drive

unlimited cloud storage/1 TB, 1 user

(1 TB per user if fewer than 5 users)

Microsoft OneDrive

Dropbox

Box

Unlimited cloud storage,1 user

Best free Cloud Backup Software for Windows

After choosing the suitable cloud drives, Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, etc., then a cloud backup software is required to backup PC to cloud drives. Although you could try these desktop app of the cloud drives, such as Google Backup and Sync, OneDrive, Dropbox desktop app, or Box Sync, to transfer files to online cloud storage, they cannot backup entire hard disk, partition structures, and other critical data for Windows operating system.

Then the best free Windows cloud backup software — AOMEI Backupper Standard comes to play an important role in backing up data to cloud. It’s designed for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit) to backup PC to cloud automatically or scheduled with only a few clicks.

How to Backup PC to Cloud in Windows 7/8/10?

To backup computer to cloud successfully, please ensure you have the enough free space on your cloud drives to save the disk image, because the disk image maybe 40GB or more (depending on your data size on the source disk).

Before backup computer to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, please get the free Windows cloud backup solution — AOMEI Backupper downloaded, then perform the program after installing it to backup efficiently.

Now, let’s have a look how to backup PC to cloud easily and safely with the following steps (take backup computer to Google Drive for example):

1. Please go to Backup tab, and then choose Disk Backup. If you prefer to backup Windows system files, please try system backup.

2. Click + Add Disk to choose your Windows 7/8/10 hard disk as source disk.

3. Select the Google Drive folder as the destination to save all files from your computer.

☛Tips:
вњЌGoogle Drive folder is typically located in C:\Users\UserName\Google Drive (replace the UserName with your current user name, the following is the same).
вњЌOneDrive desktop folder is probably located in C:\Users\UserName\OneDrive.
вњЌDropbox folder is located in C:\Users\UserName\Dropbox by default.
вњЌBox Sync folder located in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Box Sync in general.
вњЌApart from clouds, you could select one of the following devices as destination: local disk, external hard drives (HDD/SSD), USB flash drive, CD/DVD, NAS, etc.

4. Click Schedule option to set the disk backup running once, daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers, USB plug in.

☛Tip: The Event triggers, and USB plug in in Schedule are premium features, and please upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional or other advanced editions to enjoy.

5. Press Start Backup >> to backup PC to Google Drive easily and safely.

☛Tips:
вњЌOptions: enabling you to modify the backup image, like compress, split, encrypt, and comment on the backup image file, even enable email or SMS notification to get alert once the backup finished.
✍Schedule: you could enable schedule option to run this backup task via daily, weekly, Scheme: It’s useful to manage your hard disk storage space and allows you to delete old backup images to deal with backup disk full error no matter whether full backup, incremental or differential backup, etc.

Wait for a moment, the cost time depending on the data capacity of the source disk. Then you will get an disk backup image file in your Google Drive folder, and it will automatically synced to the cloud, everything is saved to the cloud. If you are willing to backup data to cloud automatically, please try file backup or basic sync.

Conclusion

It’s a piece of cake for you to backup PC to cloud, like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, etc., as long as you find the best way to backup computer with the proper Windows cloud backup software — AOMEI Backupper Standard.

Besides, more advanced features in premium edition,like migrating Windows 10 to SSD, cloning HDD to SSD is the powerful feature for you to upgrade Windows 10 computer, real time sync to sync all changed or modified files since the last backup to keep your personal files up to date.

For server users who are running Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019 (including R2), try AOMEI Backupper Server to enjoy more powerful features.