Synchronising your local files with OneDrive

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Hi everybody, in this video we are going to be looking at the sync client for OneDrive. I’m going to be looking at how files on-demand can work for you. Now you’ll notice that you have little cloud symbol next to most of your documents, you may also have a couple of green ticks and if you’ve shared your document with other people or folders with other people you may also have a little person icon. Now, what do these mean? Well, the blue icon shows you that file is currently an online file. What I mean by that is that if you were to attempt to open this file whilst in an offline environment you’d be unable to do so.

Green tick means that file is currently available on this device. So the latest version of that file has been recently opened on this device and were you to attempt to open that document in an offline environment you would be able to access that document. So how do you move between the two, while as you saw in the previous video by right clicking and clicking always keep on this device. You’ll notice that has now changed to a cycling icon and then a green tick, showing me that folder is now set to always keep on this device. That’s denoted by the difference between that green tick, and the green tick showing you’ve recently opened that folder or file on your device.

So, other ways that you can do that if you go down to your tool bar and right click on your OneDrive icon, click on settings then under settings you’ll notice you have a setting for files on-demand. Now save space and download files as you use them. If you turn that off then it will attempt to continually keep your OneDrive on your device in sync with your OneDrive in the cloud, but that will take a lot more space on your device.

If you tick it will only download the files to your device as needed and you can use the free up space feature which we will look at in a second to free up space on your device as and when needed. Other options that you have in here then, under account you can add additional locations that you want to continuously sync should you wish to.

Back up, you have the option to back up any files on your desktop, in your documents folder and in your pictures folder up to OneDrive so that they are then protected and you can access them on other devices. To do so, just click manage backup and follow the prompts through to select what you want to upload to OneDrive. And then you have a number of options that you can also select.

Lastly then, if we want to free up space on our device we can right click on any document or even just in the OneDrive window and click free up space.

Here you’ll notice that all documents that are able to be returned to the cloud have done so. That folder that we had set as always available on this device has now reverted back to being a cloud folder. (gentle music) (bright music) (gentle music)