Onedrive ~ sharing file contents only.

I know a lot of people don't like Onedrive and it certainly has some issues for me but - I'd like it to sync my Office 365 files between my 3 PC's. 2 desktops and 1 Laptop. Onedrive seems to have changed a lot in past W11 updates (all are W11 Pro networked and running version 23H2.

I don't want the desktop to be shared on the laptop, not enough screen space. Don't care about the desktops, but hate it when they all get shuffled over into one mass lump on the left. At one time I used different email accounts to avoid this but was not successful in getting my Office 365 files shared, now they use the same MS account and I turn share desktop and share apps off, but still cant get the same files into One drive.
One one PC I have loads of my files as local but can't seem to copy them to personal onedrive, some I managed to copy but they show as "available only when I'm online" what ever that means.

Get anyone help guide me what I should do to just share my documents automatically between the 3 devices?

thanks

PS: I also hate quick view that seems to replicate the file structure in file Explorer - I keep turning off and it comes back.

Yes I'm old school.

britgeezer said:

Get anyone help guide me what I should do to just share my documents automatically between the 3 devices?

Click to expand...

The simplest thing to do is put the docs you want to automatically share in the "Documents" folder and sync it.

You can also control storage space usings by using files on demand...

Bottom line is if you want to sync between PCs using OneDrive, you'll need to insure the files and folders you want sync'd are inside the OneDrive folder.

From the sound of it you want your other personal folders synced between computers using Onedrive, just not your desktop. Correct?
Use option 2. Play attention to the special comment in option 2 step 5 regarding the Desktop folder.
You would have to do this on all your computers.

I don't use OneDrive or any other 'Cloud' storage, have added a NAS drive to my Router and any computer connected whether Wired or Wireless/Wi-Fi that I Map it to can have access to the files on it.

glasskuter said:

From the sound of it you want your other personal folders synced between computers using Onedrive, just not your desktop. Correct?

Click to expand...

Already posted above your - Exact link (plus more)

Berton said:

I don't use OneDrive or any other 'Cloud' storage, have added a NAS drive to my Router and any computer connected whether Wired or Wireless/Wi-Fi that I Map it to can have access to the files on it.

Click to expand...

The OP isn't interested in whether "you" use OneDrive, their looking for a "OneDrive" solution....

britgeezer said:

I know a lot of people don't like Onedrive and it certainly has some issues for me but - I'd like it to sync my Office 365 files between my 3 PC's. 2 desktops and 1 Laptop. Onedrive seems to have changed a lot in past W11 updates (all are W11 Pro networked and running version 23H2.

I don't want the desktop to be shared on the laptop, not enough screen space. Don't care about the desktops, but hate it when they all get shuffled over into one mass lump on the left. At one time I used different email accounts to avoid this but was not successful in getting my Office 365 files shared, now they use the same MS account and I turn share desktop and share apps off, but still cant get the same files into One drive.
One one PC I have loads of my files as local but can't seem to copy them to personal onedrive, some I managed to copy but they show as "available only when I'm online" what ever that means.

Get anyone help guide me what I should do to just share my documents automatically between the 3 devices?

Click to expand...

And I could just as easily told them to use a NAS setup as I do, but they asked specifically about OneDrive

Awaiting OP's response

britgeezer said:

I don't want the desktop to be shared on the laptop, not enough screen space. Don't care about the desktops, but hate it when they all get shuffled over into one mass lump on the left.

Click to expand...

Not a problem, right click on the OneDrive icon by the clock, go to Settings, Under account on the left, select Choose Folders. Scroll down the list on the computers you don't want to share the Desktop and unselect that checkbox.

britgeezer said:

One one PC I have loads of my files as local but can't seem to copy them to personal onedrive, some I managed to copy but they show as "available only when I'm online" what ever that means.

Get anyone help guide me what I should do to just share my documents automatically between the 3 devices?

Click to expand...

On the source PC where you create a file, that file will actually exist on the hard drive and will get synced to onedrive in the cloud. By default, on any other computer on that account, the file will show as available in the cloud...but won't actually exist on that computers hard drive. This is an option called "Files on Demand". You can find it under Settings, Sync and backup on the left, advanced at the bottom, you should see the following options. you could choose the option of "Download all files" if you wanted these files to also physically exist on your other machines.


The files on demand option is great for when you have a large OneDrive, for example let's say you have Office365, and you have 600GB of stuff in your OneDrive cloud account. If you got a laptop with a 1TB drive, you might not want to have 600GB of space chewed up from OneDrive, but you want to see the files. If you double click on any file, it will then download that file to whichever PC you are working on and then it will be local.

Dru2 said:

The OP isn't interested in whether "you" use OneDrive, their looking for a "OneDrive" solution....

Click to expand...

Since it wasn't mentioned that accessing the files from outside/remotely it seemed any solution could be mentioned. Certainly have given a good reason to leave this forum to others with a stronger sense of perfection

Dru2 said:

Already posted above your - Exact link (plus more)

Click to expand...

Please note that @glasskuter posted one minute behind you. She had no way of knowing you'd both be posting at almost the same moment . . .

Thanks for the answers, I'm working my way through them.

One day I will figure out NAS. The 2nd Desktop, I use mostly as a server to store backups of my many files from over the years. However, at other times, like now, I'm in my workshop and its easier to use it as a desktop.

For now, I'd like to get OneDrive to work so that files I prepare on my "Office" desktop are available in meetings of my HOA on my laptop when I dash out of the door.

It seems that I had not used the same MS account for all 3 as I had thought, now I have done this.

My server (desktop) has 70% of the desktop icons with a standard blue color and the arrow that tells me "make sure OneDrive is running and try again" there is no hidden icon in tasks bar. How do I turn it on?
I have a cloud - (ME)-Personal folder with some content and a documents folder with most of the stuff I want to share between the PC's.
I'm confused.

In previous versions of OneDrive, deleting an icon on one PC did so on the others - that doesn't seem to be happening which is good.

How do I proceed - sorry to be so dumb.
I'm going to reread the suggestions after dinner.

britgeezer said:

How do I proceed - sorry to be so dumb.
I'm going to reread the suggestions after dinner.

Click to expand...

Please take some time to read the linked tutorial provided.

There's nothing we can do to help if you choose not to read the suggested material, to include linked tutorials.

Good luck.