One Drvie Backup of My Documents split folders

John Lenz 1,721 Reputation points
2021-03-15T21:32:42.82+00:00

Windows10 Home 20H2
I chose backup my Documents to One Drive. When I did that, 2 documents folders appeared in my profile

77890-2-documents-folders.jpg

Here is the contents of the "local" documents

77840-local-my-documents.jpg

I added them after the "split"

Here is the new "OneDrive" documents

77951-onedrive-my-documents.jpg

These folders and files were in the "local" one before I started the backup.

Why did the new folder get created and why are my files from this PC on One Drive and not on the C drive?

OneDrive Management
OneDrive Management
OneDrive: A Microsoft file hosting and synchronization service.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-03-16T15:19:32.627+00:00

    The files should be in two locations (local and OneDrive). If not you can uncheck Files-On-Demand

    78250-image.png

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-windows-10-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us

    or mark it Always keep on this device
    https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2017/06/13/onedrive-files-demand-now-available-windows-insiders/

    78306-image.png

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  1. John Lenz 1,721 Reputation points
    2021-03-16T15:08:26.967+00:00

    I think I understand how OneDrive works. I operated large scale data centers in my career and backup was paramount. Backup to me means "local" data to "backup" data location. What I am seeing on this Windows10 Home system is that One Drive is the "local" data store so tower/laptop ... can access the same data.

    Is this correct?

    Take a look at this Quicken backup trail. I can only select the OneDrive documents

    78248-quicken-save-folder.jpg

    Since ther are 2 "Documents" folders on this system, I did a test of saving a NotePad document to what I thought was the "local" document folder:

    78304-test-of-local-folder-save.jpg

    Well, the notepad document is on OneDrive. I cannot seem to be able to store anything on this system locally in the profile.

    I am at time out so I can get this system back to my daughter-in-law so she can pay her bills.

    Do I have the architecture of OneDrive backup correct or not?

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  2. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-03-16T00:06:21.12+00:00

    Not my normal location but I don't have a problem selecting OneDrive for backup in Quicken.

    77972-image.png

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  3. John Lenz 1,721 Reputation points
    2021-03-15T22:07:02.673+00:00

    Yes, I see the 2. Here is my problem. I have Quicken on this system and want to backup local. When I "Choose" backup location, I only see the One Drive documents. The local folder documents seems to be passive.

    I just did the Quicken backup test to verify where the backup went.

    This is very confusing

  4. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-03-15T21:59:49.223+00:00

    You'll probably always have two (or more). In my screen shot below the top one is local only, the other three are both local and OneDrive. I always uncheck Files-On-Demand because I don't care about disk space. I always want my files in multiple places.

    77910-image.png

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