OneDrive is a free online storage service that comes bundled with Windows or Office 365 — it’s deeply integrated into everything in Windows and Office. But what if you want to move the folder to a different drive?
Depending on how big and how many files you’ve synced, your OneDrive folder might take up substantial space on your hard drive, so if you have a second and bigger hard drive in your computer, moving the OneDrive folder makes a lot of sense.
But don’t move it just for the sake of moving it. Only move it if you really have a need to.
Change Location of the OneDrive Folder
Right-click the “OneDrive” icon in the System Tray and select “Settings.” (If you don’t see it, it may be hidden. In that case, click the up arrow button in the system tray to see the hidden icons—including OneDrive).
The OneDrive Settings dialog box appears. From the list of options, select “Unlink OneDrive”.
As soon as you click on the option you will get the Welcome to OneDrive screen with a button to “Get started”.
Now before you configure the settings again, move the contents of the OneDrive folder that were already previously synced. Moving the synced folders will make sure you save on your bandwidth on the files that were already previously synced.
Open File Explorer and navigate to the OneDrive folder (usually in
C:\Users\<your username>\OneDrive) and select it. Click on the “Home” tab in the explorer ribbon and select “Move to > Choose location.” Choose the folder location (it can be an external hard too, but you have to keep the drive plugged in all the time, which is not practical) where you need to save your OneDrive files in the future.
Go back to the OneDrive set-up screen, select “Get started,” and sign into OneDrive again. When you sign in, OneDrive will ask you where you want to save folders to with a suggested location (your User folder) already selected. Instead of accepting this suggested location, click “Change”, navigate to the folder you selected for OneDrive and select “OK”.
Once you move the OneDrive folder to a new location, it inherits the folder permissions of the parent folder (or drive if the OneDrive folder is placed at the root directory). You’ll need to update the Windows user permissions to the new OneDrive folder that used to exist on the old folder, or else that folder will be viewable by everyone who uses the machine.
Of course, you can limit what folders you want to sync in Windows 10. OneDrive has a feature called selective sync. It lets you either sync all your files and folders on your OneDrive, or choose specific folders to sync, making them available locally.
