Unlike traditional storage devices such as a hard disk or SSD, OneDrive stores a copy of your file on its servers. Therefore, you can backup your computer to OneDrive to recover them in case your device is lost or damaged. So, without further delay, let’s look at how to backup your computer to OneDrive.
How to Backup Computer to Onedrive on Windows
There are two ways to use OneDrive for backup. One is to install the OneDrive desktop app on your local computer, and the other is to use the web app version. Using the desktop app, you can have files locally available on your PC while still syncing to OneDrive. However, it takes up some space on your storage too.On the other hand, the web app allows you to store files without consuming any space on your PC. But, you must sign in to your account from the browser and download the files each time you need them locally. Nonetheless, here’s how to back up your files using both the desktop app and the web app.
Using the Desktop Application
If you are using Windows 10 or 11, OneDrive comes pre-installed on your computer. However, you must install the OneDrive application from its official site for older Windows versions. To backup using the desktop application,
Using the Onedrive Web App
To backup using the web app, you have to upload the files to the OneDrive dashboard. Here’s how you can do it.
How to Change the Backup Location
Generally, OneDrive creates a folder named “OneDrive” on your system disk (C: drive for most people) to store its files. Then, everything you save on that folder gets backed up automatically, given that you are connected to the Internet. However, if you want to change the folder, you can do it with the following steps.
How to Restore Files from the Onedrive Cloud to Your PC
If you want to access the synced files on OneDrive from a different computer, you can download them from the OneDrive web app. Here’s how you can do it.
How to Get More Storage in Onedrive
OneDrive only offers 5GB storage for a free account which isn’t sufficient in this digital age. So, it can fill up pretty quickly.To get more storage, you have to upgrade to their premium subscription, which offers up to 1TB of storage on the cloud.On the other hand, if you have a valid .edu account, you can have up to 5TB of OneDrive storage for free.
Related Questions
How Can I Backup Files from One Onedrive Account to Another?
If you have multiple OneDrive accounts, you may want to move files from one account to another. Even though OneDrive doesn’t provide a direct way to do it, you can still do it in the following way.Alternatively, you can use third-party tools like MultCloudcloudHQ, cloudHQ, cloudfuze, etc., to directly migrate the content between two OneDrive accounts. Furthermore, you can even do it for different storage cloud service providers.
How to Backup Files to Onedrive on a Mac?
Since Mac doesn’t have OneDrive already installed on it, you have to download its Desktop application. Then, copy/move your files to the OneDrive folder to backup. On the other hand, you can use the OneDrive web app if you don’t want to install the application.
