Sync a Folder on your PC with SkyDrive

Sync Skydrive folder to a folder on your PC

Windows Live SkyDrive is a free cloud storage service by Microsoft that offers users 25GB of storage space and then access it from anywhere from any browser but unlike dropbox you can’t just sync a folder on your PC which is a much better to getting it done ( at least for me it is ). Having a Windows Phone I started using skydrive and I was looking around for a way to sync folder on my PC to Skydrive and since most of you all will be windows phone users as well this could come in handy for you as well. Plz note that you can’t sync all file types , I was only able to sync documents using this method. Tutorial after the break.

Step 1 : Get SkyDrive Folder’s WebDAV address
To sync the files from your PC to your SkyDrive we should get your unique SkyDrive ID a.k.a SkyDrive Folder’s WebDAV address to get this we have to use a 3rd party software called SkyDrive Simple Viewer for WebDav which is an open-source software ( get it here ). You have to provide your login details in the app to get your unique folder url . If you are not comfortable doing this , you can’t use this method to Sync a Folder on your PC with SkyDrive.

Get SkyDrive Folder WebDAV address

Once you put in your login details and try to login , you should see a list of the folders on your SkyDrive. Select the one you want to mount on your hard drive ( from the left ) and copy the URL that should show up on the right.

NOTE : You could remove the folder name from the url to sync your entire SkyDrive with a folder on your PC. ( but when I tried that I kept getting an error “the file is too large for the destination file system” YMMV.

Step 2 : Map SkyDrive Folder from Windows PC

Right-click on My Computer and select Map Network Drive. You can pick a drive letter that you want and paste the url you copied earlier in to the field which says folder and click Finish. You should see a login popup , enter your skyDrive login details and click ok and the SkyDrive folder you’ve picked will now show up in My Computer you could also create a shortcut on the desktop for easy access and it should also be available from the Send To option when you right click a file

Map Network Drive

I did make the SkyDrive folder public and it’s also important to note that I was only able to transfer documents to SkyDrive , images and other media kept failing :( There are 3rd party solutions like SDExplorer ( I haven’t used it myself , but if you want a turn key solution it might be worth a look ). I hope in the future Microsoft will make it easy for users by allowing the kind of integration Dropbox offers , its beyond me why don’t already do this.

idea for the post via mikeplate

Juliano Henriquez

You may also try: Gladinet Cloud, it works pretty well and allows you to work your skydrive like dropbox. http://www.gladinet.com/p/download_starter_direct.htm
- http://www.bestwp7games.com Saijo George
  
  thanks for sharing it
Alex

Why don’t you use mesh.live.com? you have less storage, but you have it sync across all your devices.
- http://www.bestwp7games.com Saijo George
  
  frankly I am quite happy with dropbox , I started using Skydrive just coz of the WP7 integration
- akshay2000
  
  The problem with Live mesh is that it only ‘syncs’ the files and folders. Its not integrated into the WP7 or Office Live either! It just syncs the stuff across different Windows computers. Now, it becomes useful only when you have more than one Windows computer, and that’s not probably the case many a times. We really need Dropbox-like integration in the Skydrive and Windows Phone 7.
Fleon

I agree- I’d like to see MS actually step on real integration with Skydrive. Years ago, they had a project working on this, but dropped it and Dropbox ran all over them.

@Alex: the reason mesh.live.com isn’t even close to decent is that it’s syncing to a separate area of Skydrive. You can’t edit documents like you can with the rest of Skydrive, you can’t view pictures correctly there, most of the new Skydrive features don’t exist there, and it makes you download files when you launch them instead of being able to sync them. Most importantly, WP7.5 integrates well with Skydrive. It just doesn’t work at all with Mesh-synced files.

MS needs to get an offline caching solution in place ASAP or at least a dropbox-like sync program that works correctly with Skydrive.
Alex

Oh I am not aware that Live Mesh still doesn’t support Windows Phone (the add a device has a phone option, and I am using WM6.5). When it does, we’ll get the dropbox like sync.