Keep data on computer and in the cloud

Sometimes it may appear that online services – such as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive – have taken data off your PC and transferred it to the cloud. However, the services are probably set up to store your new files only online. What looked like stored files on your computer were really links to the online files.

What you need to do is set up Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive to store files both on your computer and online. For starters, when you create a file, store it on your PC first. For example, Microsoft Word has a “save as” feature that lets you specify where a file is stored – so pick a folder on your computer in which to store a document.

Then follow these steps:

Dropbox and OneDrive both create a folder on your computer; everything you put in that folder will be duplicated online. (And, everything you delete from the Dropbox and OneDrive folders will be deleted from the cloud.) So, after storing new files on your computer, copy and paste them to the Dropbox and OneDrive folders to put them online. Do the same thing every time you update a file on your PC so you’ll have identical files in both places.

You can also do this in reverse to get your online-only files back on your computer. Copy and paste files from the Dropbox and OneDrive folders to folders on your computer.

You can use the same cut-and-paste technique with Google Drive, but first you must create its folder on your computer by downloading “Google Drive for desktop”. In addition, you must set “Drive for desktop” to “mirror” your files, which means keep identical copies on your PC and in the cloud. Once that’s done, any changes you make to files in the “Drive for desktop” folder will be copied to the cloud.

AA