How to Sync OneDrive to External Drive Automatically in 2 Ways

• Can You Sync OneDrive to External Drive?
• Why Sync OneDrive to External Drive?
• How to Sync OneDrive to External Drive Easily in 2 Ways
• Bonus Tip: Sync OneDrive to Another Cloud Directly
• Summary

Can You Sync OneDrive to External Drive?

“OneDrive is now an essential part of my storage requirement. I use Microsoft OneDrive to store both my business and personal data. But since I upload too much data on OneDrive, my OneDrive is quickly being flooded with a large number of files and the storage limit is getting smaller and smaller. How can I sync OneDrive to external hard drive easily?”

With the fast development of cloud technology, services for cloud storage and online file-sharing are getting cheaper, better, faster, and more secure, which attracts more and more users. One of the most famous cloud storage services in the cloud market is Microsoft OneDrive. OneDrive offers users great convenience in file storing, file sharing, and file syncing. It not only syncs all files between different devices but also makes backups securely online.

OneDrive provides users with 5 GB of free storage and up to 1 TB of purchased storage. So, the files which you want to sync OneDrive to PC are easy to exceed the storage that your computer can offer. Therefore, it is wise to have an alternative storage drive that allows you to sync OneDrive folder to external hard drive. This alternative storage can be located within the system, on an external hard drive, or on a separate partition.

Why Sync OneDrive to External Drive?

You may wonder why people try to sync OneDrive with an external hard drive. The reason is that syncing OneDrive to external drive is great for data safety and the convenience of using cloud files offline with another device.

Work Even without the Internet: Once the OneDrive desktop application is installed on your computer, all the OneDrive data will be synced to local devices in real-time. That is to say, after syncing, you can use all the OneDrive files on your computer even if the computer cannot connect to the Internet.

Better Way to Keep Data Safe: Files can be easily damaged offline and online for a variety of reasons, especially due to ransomware virus attacks. For this reason, you can sync OneDrive to an external hard drive to put double security on your files. 

If you are going to sync OneDrive with an external drive, then the next two methods will be so much helpful for you to try.

How to Sync OneDrive to External Drive Easily in 2 Ways

According to the OneDrive two-way sync function provided by the OneDrive desktop app, as long as the hard drive is connected to a PC or Mac, OneDrive will treat the external hard drive as a normal part of your local device. This means that you can sync OneDrive with an external hard drive just as you would sync any other folder on your computer.

Here we find and test out 2 different ways for you to figure out how to sync OneDrive with external hard drive. You can choose one and follow the step-by-step instructions below to set up your OneDrive to external drive sync easily.

Method 1. How to Sync OneDrive to External Hard Drive Manually

Step 1. Download and install the OneDrive desktop app on your computer.
Step 2. Sign in to the app with your OneDrive or OneDrive for Business account.

Step 3. When the OneDrive folder has been created in the File Explorer or Finder, click the OneDrive icon in the lower right taskbar.
Step 4. Click the gear icon in the pop-up window and choose “Settings” in the dropdown menu.

Step 5. On the “Account” page, click “Unlink this PC” and ignore the pop-up prompts.

Step 6. Navigate to the OneDrive folder in the File Explorer or Finder.
Step 7. Cut and paste the OneDrive folder into the external hard drive.
Step 8. In the pop-up prompts, sign in to the app with the same account again.
Step 9. Click “Change location” and select the moved OneDrive folder in the external hard drive. Then click “Use this folder” in the pop-up window.
Step 10. Click on the “Next” three times and your OneDrive files will be synced to your external hard drive.

Method 2. How to Sync OneDrive to External Drive Automatically

Except for manually moving the OneDrive folder from the initial place to an external hard drive, you can also use a free and professional file sync service called AOMEI Backupper Standard to sync OneDrive to your external drive on Windows 11/10/8/7 in an automatic mode with fewer steps. 

Step 1. Download, install and sign in to the OneDrive desktop app on your computer.
Step 2. Download, install and open the AOMEI Backupper Standard on your computer.
Step 3. Open the “Sync” page and choose “Basic Sync”.

Step 4. Click “Add Folder” and select the OneDrive folder in the pop-up window as the source.

Step 5. Select a folder in your external hard drive as the destination.
Step 6. Click “Start Sync” and AOMEI Backupper will sync OneDrive files to external drive immediately.

Bonus Tip: Sync OneDrive to Another Cloud Directly

No matter how large the storage can be provided in your external hard drive, it may still not be convenient enough for you to keep your OneDrive data safe since you should always carry the external drive along with you and install one or two apps on your devices. Another point is that using an external hard drive to sync OneDrive files may not be cheap enough compared with using another cloud drive to sync and backup OneDrive files.

If you want to sync OneDrive with another OneDrive account or with other clouds efficiently and easily for free, you’d better use a web-based multiple cloud storage manager like MultCloud to seamlessly sync OneDrive with another cloud account with a single click and 10 multifunctional sync modes.

To quickly sync OneDrive with other clouds without installing anything, all you need is to add your clouds to MultCloud and use the Cloud Sync feature to easily sync files and folders between OneDrive and another cloud.

Sync Files between OneDrive Accounts by MultCloud

Step 1. Sign up MultCloud on the official website.

Step 2. Choose the OneDrive icon and choose a OneDrive account to allow MultCloud to access this account.
Step 3. Click “Add Cloud” and choose the OneDrive icon again to add another OneDrive account to MultCloud.

Step 4. On the “Cloud Sync” page, select one of your OneDrive accounts or files and folders in it as the source, then select another OneDrive account or a folder in it as the destination.
Step 5. Click the “Sync Now” button and MultCloud will immediately sync files between OneDrive accounts.

Summary

Since you can have all the control of your external hard drive, learning how to sync OneDrive to external drive will make your data safer than before. Besides, using MultCloud to sync OneDrive with Dropbox and other clouds can also make your data safe while occupying none of your local storage.