Read time 5 minutes

Summary: This comprehensive guide underscores the importance of safeguarding OneDrive data, offering manual and automated backup methods. It introduces the Kernel OneDrive Migration Tool as a professional solution, emphasizing its speed, accuracy, and security for business-critical data protection.

Whether you’re utilizing OneDrive Personal or OneDrive for Business as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription, it’s essential to maintain a constant focus on the security of your online data. While Microsoft stores OneDrive data in a secure data center safeguarded against a wide range of threats, it is not entirely immune to potential risks such as hardware failures, power outages, natural disasters, human errors, hacking attempts, ransomware attacks, operating system errors, and more. Microsoft does not create automatic backups of your OneDrive data, underscoring the importance of proactive security measures and data protection practices.

In the unfortunate event of a mishap affecting OneDrive, your data could be at risk of permanent loss if proper backups haven’t been taken. Consequently, users, administrators, and company owners all recognize the critical importance of backing up OneDrive data. To effectively back up OneDrive data, it’s essential to establish a well-thought-out method that can be easily followed.

In this comprehensive yet user-friendly step-by-step guide, we will elucidate the most effective methods to secure your data using both free and professional options. Specifically, we’ll focus on how to back up your OneDrive files to an external hard drive or your local system.

Method-1 Download specific items from OneDrive

It is possible to backup OneDrive data to your local system through simple download.

  1. Login to OneDrive and select the data for backup using the checkbox in front of them.
  2. You can either click the three vertical dots or choose the Download button directly.choose the Download button directly
  3. The data will be downloaded in the ZIP file in the default downloads folder.
Limitations

Even though it’s not a backup, this procedure could aid in preserving the OneDrive files you’ve chosen. This approach has many drawbacks, including:

  • As all actions are manual, there is a lack of regularity.
  • A large set of data will take a lot of time to download.
  • If something bad happens to the computer or hard disc, backups could be lost.
  • If there is a lot of data, OneDrive recovery gets difficult.
  • It is suitable for limited-volume data only. Ultimately, you would require to backup OneDrive to external hard drive for further protection.
Method-2 OneDrive Sync for Desktop

By using the OneDrive desktop version installed on your computer, you can seamlessly synchronize your online data directly to your local machine. This means that any file or folder you add, edit, or delete in your OneDrive folder will also reflect those changes on the OneDrive website, and vice versa. Your synchronized files remain accessible even when you’re offline and can be conveniently managed through File Explorer. Any edits you make will automatically sync with the online version once you’re back online. This synchronization process eliminates the need for manual backups to an external drive, as your online data is automatically present on your local system.

  1. If the application is not present on the computer, then you can download it from the given URL –
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/onedrive/download
  2. Install the application and register with your email address connected with OneDrive data. Click Sign in.Click Sign in
  3. The wizard will take a little time to install and synchronize all your data. Wait for a little.install and synchronize all your data
  4. After successful synchronization, the OneDrive wizard will be available in the app list in the File Explorer preview.File Explorer preview
Limitations
  • You risk losing files on both sites if you employ two-sided synchronization and something goes wrong on one side.
  • There is a chance that ransomware will infect your OneDrive; if your desktop files are compromised, the synchronization will move compromised data to the cloud and create issues.
  • You need a lot of free space on your local disc to back up OneDrive. This is a problem if you need to back up a lot of data.
Method-3 Professionally backup OneDrive data

The Kernel OneDrive Migration Tool is a versatile solution designed to facilitate data migration from one OneDrive for Business account to another, even when transitioning between different Microsoft 365 tenants. Users frequently turn to this tool not only for migration purposes but also as a means of effectively backing up their OneDrive data. One of its key advantages is the ability to migrate either the entire data set or selectively using various filters like Date, File, and User, making it highly customizable.

This automated method ensures both speed and accuracy in the migration process, eliminating the potential for errors. As a result, you can readily access your data whenever the need arises. Furthermore, professional backup tools prioritize security maintenance, offering an additional layer of data protection. Perhaps the most significant advantage of this software is the freedom it provides for seamless data migration between OneDrive accounts, obviating the need for manual backups to external drives. Your data remains securely stored in the cloud throughout the migration process.

Conclusion

While manual methods for backing up OneDrive data may suffice for smaller files on a temporary basis, they are not a replacement for a comprehensive, professional OneDrive backup solution. For businesses, it is essential to invest in robust software like Kernel OneDrive Migration that offers specialized backup features tailored to meet your data protection needs. This ensures a higher level of data security and reliability, making it a necessity for safeguarding your business-critical information.

By utilizing this tool, you can establish a connection to your OneDrive for Business account and securely save your entire dataset on your local system. This approach effectively mitigates the limitations inherent to OneDrive’s security measures, providing enhanced data protection. Moreover, the tool offers valuable features such as filters and scheduling, enabling you to conduct granular and controlled backup operations.

For Office 365 administrators, this tool empowers them to take OneDrive backups for all accounts under their purview, ensuring comprehensive data backup and management across the organization.

Kernel OneDrive Migration