How to Choose which OneDrive folders to Sync to your PC in Windows 11

This article describes the steps to choose which OneDrive folders to sync to your PC in Windows 11.

The OneDrive app lets you sync files and folders on your computer with Microsoft cloud, allowing you to access them anywhere on your mobile devices and other computers using the service.

By default, your important folders (your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders) on your device will be backed up automatically to Microsoft cloud online.

Since the OneDrive app syncs bidirectionally, you may not want all the folders in your OneDrive online account downloaded and synced to your PC. With the OneDrive app, you can choose which folders you want to download to your PC instead of everything.

You simply don’t want all the folders, even unimportant ones stored on your PC.

Select which OneDrive folders to sync to your PC in Windows 11

As described above, with the OneDrive app, you can choose which folders you want to download to your PC. If you have large and unimportant folders, you may want to avoid downloading and syncing these folders to your computer.

Here’s how to choose which folders to download to your PC using the OneDrive app in Windows 11.

First, set up OneDrive in Windows 11. If you identify large unimportant files and folders you don’t want to download, go and open the OneDrive app.

You can do that from the Start menu or browse to the OneDrive installed location at (“C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\OneDrive.exe“).

You can also quickly access the OneDrive icon from the Taskbar overflow.

onedrive icon on the taskbar overview
onedrive icons on the taskbar overview

When the app opens, click on the Help & Settings (gear) icon, and then on Settings.

onedrive help and settings button
onedrive help and settings button

On the Settings pane, under Account, click the “Choose folders” button.

windows onedrive choose which folder to sync to pc
windows onedrive choose which folder to sync to pc

On the Choose folders window, clear the check boxes for any folders you do not want to sync to your computer and, to confirm your changes, select OK > OK.

windows onedrive choose which folder to sync to pc clear box
windows onedrive choose which folder to sync to pc clear box

These folders will be available on-demand, meaning you can still download them anytime you want simply by choosing to do so.

That should do it!

Reference:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/choose-which-onedrive-folders-to-sync-to-your-computer-62539dc7-bc9e-4091-8863-b6833cc2ee88

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to choose which folders to sync to your PC using the OneDrive app in Windows 11. If you find any error above or have something to add, please use the comment form below.