Advice with MS Onedrive.

[Formaleins]

 

Wonder if anyone knows an answer to this question - I have done half of what I want to do and it appears to be starting to work, but I am a bit wary of messing about with OneDrive (did that in the past and have the T-shirt) in case I mess up and lose the structure that I currently have.

What I am doing and what I am trying to do - First, I am trying to ensure that all of my raw photo data that I download from my camera is transferred to a folder in OneDrive - Normally I do this on my main PC using the CANON EOS utility, the one that downloads the photos and allows for remote control of the camera.

The situation at present is that all of my photos (as setup in my EOS program) are downloaded to my main PC onto a fast NVME drive which I will call G:\ - Now, in order to make sure that they are also available either across devices I have used the MKlink command to create a Junction from this physical hard drive across to the OneDrive folder. All appears well and good and all of my photos now appear on the OneDrive folder under the original folder name and also on the original download location G:\ - (Query number 1: Where are they actually located? I think that they have been physically moved from G:\  to OneDrive, but to all intents and purposes they appear and behave as if they are physically still on G:\ (at least as far as the OS is concerned) - For instance if I was to unplug my G:\ drive would the photos be there or would it just be a defunct link? I cannot tell as both OneDrive and G:\ both report the physical size and it appears that they are on both - However, I don't think that this is true. (ACTUALLY I might have this the wrong way round and the files remain on G:\ and only the link is on OneDrive or then again, maybe both drives have them???) Usually when using MKLink there is a discrepancy between the amount of space used between the drive with the real files and the drive with the link - it is not so when using OneDrive, both photo folders are over 30GB!

 

Query number two - I also have a laptop, it only has two physical drives C and D, OneDrive on this machine is located on D:\.

 

What I want to do now is, using the CANON EOS software that is also on this laptop, I want to be able to download any photos I take when I am away with only my laptop straight into this Canon Folder. This I "THINK" would need to be setup with the EOS software to download photos to the Laptop OneDrive Canon folder, anyone know if this is correct? 

 

It should give unique file names as they are set by the camera, but I really do not want to find everything overwritten the next day as OneDrive is actually almost 1TB in size and the way it works is sometimes like a bloody stealth mode, if you cock up it looks fine first but then later it has done untold damage (yes I have lost shedloads after incorrectly moving the OneDrive folder around.)

 

So lastly, if the files download to the laptop OneDrive location then they should also be uploaded to the OneDrive online location, but.....here is the big question, will they ALSO update and be available on my G:\ drive on the main PC?

 

The thing is, I am currently linking the Canon folder on G:\ to the main PC OneDrive folder and it appears locally and it also appears online in the OneDrive folder in the cloud, however, it is NOT showing up yet on my laptop - usually OneDrive adds the folder immediately even before everything is updated, but there is no Canon folder yet on my Laptop OneDrive! Confused? You will be!

 

Many thanks!

Edited March 13, 2019 by Formaleins

[gamb00ler]

I used to struggle with Windows on this same issue before I switched to using a Mac.  I did a quick google search and from what I understand OneDrive does not honor file system linkages created with mklink.  In other words files that don't physically exist in the OneDrive folder are not synchronized.

 

If you really want to use OneDrive you will need to copy the files into that directory.  Hopefully the utility program that uploads photos from your camera allows you to select the destination folder easily.  I recommend that you keep things as simple as possible and use only the OneDrive folder.

 

Are you aware that there are alternatives to OneDrive for cloud storage and synchronization?  For instance Google Photos offers free unlimited photo storage in the cloud and there are apps for most major devices/environments.

[Langsuan Man]

Be careful out there

 

Delete something on One Drive and guess what, you lost it permanently, unless you are quick enough to go into One Drive's Recycle bin and restore it

 

Unlike Google Drive, One Drive is part of Win 10's operating system  

 

I have struggled over the years with Micro$oft's increasingly "new and improved" OS versions but this Windows 10 has to be the worst in a long line of garbage

 

 

[Formaleins]

3 hours ago, Langsuan Man said:

Be careful out there

 

Delete something on One Drive and guess what, you lost it permanently, unless you are quick enough to go into One Drive's Recycle bin and restore it

 

Unlike Google Drive, One Drive is part of Win 10's operating system  

 

I have struggled over the years with Micro$oft's increasingly "new and improved" OS versions but this Windows 10 has to be the worst in a long line of garbage

 

 

Tell me about it! I used it when it first came out and it was a constant battle. There appeared to be a very confusing hierarchy to the file system. I had thousands of photos stored on one PC, upgraded to Win 10 Pro x64, then I decided to move my OneDrive Pictures folder from C:\ to my D:\ Drive as I needed space - Lost the entire folder, my own fault, I did not understand the terminology used in moving the folder and ended up moving a completely empty folder called Pictures - which overwrote all of my files. I wear the T-shirt of shame with a lot of things I have messed up on Windows believe me!

 

Thanks for your warnings though, heed has been taken!

 

 

8 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

I used to struggle with Windows on this same issue before I switched to using a Mac.  I did a quick google search and from what I understand OneDrive does not honor file system linkages created with mklink.  In other words files that don't physically exist in the OneDrive folder are not synchronized.

 

If you really want to use OneDrive you will need to copy the files into that directory.  Hopefully the utility program that uploads photos from your camera allows you to select the destination folder easily.  I recommend that you keep things as simple as possible and use only the OneDrive folder.

 

Are you aware that there are alternatives to OneDrive for cloud storage and synchronization?  For instance Google Photos offers free unlimited photo storage in the cloud and there are apps for most major devices/environments.

Thanks for the info, the Canon software has made it easier I must admit and depending on which machine it uploads to it creates a different prefix as well as the photo numbering system. The MKlink is a strange one, there are a few variants that Windows recognizes, one of the main differences seems to be how you apply the link. I am finding that rather than use the symbolic link in the destination - the use of a JUNCTION definitely improves the way files are handled in the system. The junction appears to recognize entire directories. I will check out Google photos though, I do have a free cloud service from Canon too, the problem is with a lot of this storage (I already pay for a terabyte on OneDrive) the amount they provide free is somewhat limited and you end up with loads of files split over many different sources, which was why I liked the idea of OneDrive, everything was easy to find.

Thanks again, appreciated.