Office 365 - Syncing files to/from your computer with your College Microsoft Cloud storage

Overview

If you have been storing your college data on Microsoft's Servers by using any of these technologies: SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams Files or Microsoft OneDrive, you may be getting tired of going to the www.office.com website or the Teams client to access them.  Wouldn't it be great if you can access your files using your computers File Explorer (Windows Explorer) built-in file navigator? Well there is away.  After you are done these steps you will be able to access all the the files you choose in one location and from any application.

This article assumes you’ve already been added to the Team that you are planning to sync the files for. If you don’t have access or haven’t been added yet it’s possible you won’t see the Team that you need. If this is the case you’ll need to contact whoever manages the Team and request that they add you to that particular Team.

Instructions

You have two options when syncing Files in Teams, you can either sync the top level which will allow you to keep all your files in the same folder structure you see in Teams, or you can sync individual folders.  Make sure to pick the right option for yourself.

Syncing channels within a Team

This will synchronize every channel that exists in your chosen Team to your local computer, if you only need access to specific channels then you should instead follow the next set of instructions for syncing individual channels.

• Login to www.office.com (How to login to Office 365)
• Once logged in, navigate to the Teams icon on the left hand side. 
• You should now see your, individual, list of teams.

• If it’s not already visible, as in the above example, expand the channels list for the team your want to sync data from
• Click on the General channel
• At the top of the right pane you will notice a number of heading titles.  In my example you will see Posts, Files and Staff Notebook.  
• Click on Files

• You should now see a listing of all Folder in the file directory area of the page.

NOTE: This is where you decide what folder you want to sync.  If you stay in the General Folder you will be syncing everything you see.  If you navigate to any of the folder in the below list you can sync these folder separately.  This may be beneficial if you one want a few folders when General contains many folders you don't want/need.

• When you are ready to sync and have chosen the folder you want, click on the Sync button (see below)

• If your browser asks, allow it to launch OneDrive.
  • Check the box Alway allow teams.microsoft.com to open links ...
  • Click Open Microsoft OneDrive
• You’ll need to be signed in using the OneDrive for Business app already, if you aren’t then you’ll be prompted to sign-in after clicking the Sync button (you may have to repeat this process after signing into OneDrive for Business to properly sync the files).

• If it worked you should see a notification that you’re now syncing a new location via OneDrive. 
  • You may have to look for the popup window on your Taskbar 
  • It may take a bit of time to populate the window.

• If you encounter and issues, click the link to Get the latest version of OneDrive. once installed try the above steps again.
• Otherwise, click anywhere in the windows to dismiss the popup

• When Windows is done setting up the Sync you should see a Window 10 Popup in the bottom right of your screen.

By clicking this pop up you will be brought to File Explorer (Windows Explorer), where you will be able to see your new Sault College folder structure.

If you missed this pop up you can now open File Explorer on your own or within an application of your choice, you can navigate Files to see this new folder structure.

• If you want to modify the settings of these new or older OneDrive synced folder(s), look for the Blue Cloud on the task bar.
• Either right of left click to access Settings

Stop syncing a location

• If you ever need to adjust what is synchronizing you can click on the OneDrive icon (Blue Cloud in image above) on the taskbar.
• Click Help & Settings
• Click Settings

• click the Account tab.

NOTE: This area will list what is syncing to your computer, the first location is always your individual OneDrive and subsequent items will be organization syncs (such as Teams channels). If you want, you can click the Stop sync link to un-link and stop actively synchronizing documents to your computer. Finally just confirm by clicking the Stop sync button on the warning window that appears. You may have to manually delete any files that were added from the sync in order to free the space up on your computer.

Modifying Synced Folders to setup a selective sync

• If you want to modify the folders you are syncing, refer to the above image, simply click Choose folders.
• Uncheck or check foldes you'll like to modify
• Click OK when done

Final words

NOTE: OneDrive will only download files that have been accesses, the rest will appear as a link to you but will simply sit on the Cloud.  If you loose access to the Internet you will still be able to work on files you have work on in the past.

If you want to know how to determine what files have been synced to your computer.

• In File Manager navigate to the files, that you just setup and, you want to check.
• In my image below, you will notice two distinct icons under the Status column.  You won't see both of these icons with a newly synced set of folders.
  • CLOUD - This tells us the the data hasn't been synced to the computers drive yet, but is available when online.  Once accessed it will be downloaded and it's icon will change to the Green Circle with Green Check Mark
  • Green Circle with Green Check Mark - The tells us that the files has been downloaded to the computers drive and is available for offline use.