Sync OneDrive To Your Synology
Introduction
Despite the fact I use my desktop PC for work reasons, I do use it to play video games occasionally as well. For this reason, I try to avoid installing anything on it that I can run from a virtual machine or some other device.
One of the services I have been running on my desktop that I use often is Microsoft OneDrive. I use it to store important work files and to sync data between my home office and my work office.
Today I will show you how I moved this process off my desktop and onto my Synology.
I am running a Synology DS920+. While this tutorial will work with a lot of newer Synologys, it may not work for all of them.
Setting up your sync folder
In order to sync our data to our Synology, we will need a place to sync the data to. For this we will create a Shared Folder on our Synology.
To do this, log into your Synology. This takes you to the DSM (DiskStation Manager).
In the DSM, click on the Control Panel.
Click on "Shared Folder".
Then click on the "Create" button.
Then click on "Create Shared Folder".
This will take you to the "Shared Folder Creation Wizard".
I just gave the folder a name of "OneDrive". Verify you have the folder being created at the proper Location. Mine only has a single raid volume.
Now you can just click Next and keep clicking next through the following screens until you return to the Shared Folder screen with your new "OneDrive" folder.
From here I used "File Station" to create multiple sub folders due to I have multiple OneDrive accounts I needed to Sync.
Setting up Cloud Sync
Once we have our folder structure in place, we need to go to the Package Manager and download "Cloud Sync".
Click on the Cloud Sync package. Once you are in the Cloud Sync screen, click on Install.
After the package has installed, click "Open".
This will bring you to the Cloud Sync main screen. From here, click on the blue button with a plus symbol on it to create a new sync process.
This will bring up a list of cloud providers. Find Microsoft OneDrive or Microsoft OneDrive for Business depending on what type of account you are syncing.
Once you click Next, you will be prompted to log into your Microsoft account. Log into your Microsoft account you want to sync.
Once you are logged in, you will be prompted to agree to permissions needed for cloud sync. Click Agree.
On the next screen, in the box labeled "Local Path:", enter the location of the folder you created to sync to. You can also click the folder icon in the box and it will bring up a popup so you can navigate to the folder.
Once the Local Path is populated, click Next.
Review the information on the next screen, and if all is correct, click Done.
At this point a message box should appear letting you know you the process is working.
You can confirm this is working by using File Station to navigate to the sync folder you created to see the files being synced.
Conclusion
Following this guide, you should be able to use Cloud Sync on a Synology NAS to sync your Microsoft OneDrive files.
If you want to easily be able to access the sync folder, you can add a network share location pointing to the sync folder. This will allow you to easily access it from your "This PC" on your Windows machine.
One drawback I have experienced with this so far is if you have to connect to a VPN, it can mess with accessing your local network resources. This is due to the way that the VPN is configured. So if you need access to some of the files while on a VPN, you may need to work around this.
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Kevin is a data engineer and is the Business Intelligence Practice Lead at Software Design Partners specializing in data warehousing. He is a father, an occasional gamer, and lover of many different types of music.
The opinions expressed on this site are my own and may not represent my employer's view.
About this blog...
In this blog post we take a look at how to sync your Microsoft OneDrive files to your Synology NAS.