Sync OneDrive with external storage in Windows, using Briefcase

You can use Windows Briefcase to sync folders and files between different storage devices. With the Briefcase, you can sync an external storage device such as a USB flash drive with OneDrive easily. This might be useful if you want to easily access your offline copies of documents from the cloud through another computer and sync your changes later. Since Microsoft hid the Briefcase from recent versions of Windows, you can use a registry edit to make it visible again.

Sync OneDrive with external storage using Briefcase in Windows

In order to sync the OneDrive directory with Briefcase, you must download the official OneDrive app for Windows desktop from OneDrive’s website.

After the installation of the OneDrive app is complete, you will have to enable the Briefcase through a simple registry edit. You should create a restore point now so you can revert to it later if something goes wrong.

Paste this into Notepad and save it as Briefcase.reg:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Briefcase\ShellNew]
“IconPath”=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\
74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,\
00,79,00,6e,00,63,00,75,00,69,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,30,00,00,00
“ItemName”=hex(2):40,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,\
6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,\
00,73,00,68,00,65,00,6c,00,6c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,\
2d,00,36,00,34,00,39,00,33,00,00,00
“Directory”=”"
“Handler”=”{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}”
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Briefcase\ShellNew\Config]
“IsFolder”=”"
“NoExtension”=”"

After you save the file, run it and click “Yes” to continue. If you wish, you may download this ready-to-use registry file, which we had uploaded for use in our earlier post. It is the same thing and works fine on Windows 8 too.

Next, decide where you want to keep a synced copy of OneDrive and bring up the context menu by right-clicking on the desktop. Move your mouse over to New -> Briefcase and give it a name. Then, drag and drop your OneDrive directory (or its subdirectories) into the Briefcase to sync your files and folders.

Since the Briefcase won’t update automatically every time you need to update the copy of OneDrive, you need to right-click the Briefcase and select “Update All” to sync the copy. You can then review the changes suggested and accept to update it!

Hope this makes things easier!