Forum Discussion
Sharing the same file across different Onedrive Folders
Is it possible to upload a link, and link it so its located on multiple folders on OneDrive? The purpose would be to ensure that while the file exists in multiple folders, editing it in one location would ensure that the changes propagate to wherever the file is.
First of I would like to say this is a massive pain as I use google drive, where you can do this and not employ a work around.
I believe I have worked a solution out, but it will only work if the end user's computer is online.
1. Create a shareable link, either one anyone can edit or only certain users. ...copy link.
2. In Windows File Explorer, Go to fold and location in which you would like the share item to appear.
3. right-click in an empty space and select new
4. select shortcut
5. paste the copied link from step 2.
6. next and name as you wish.
7.Finish.
And that's done, pressing this shortcut will open the item in your browser, and you can then edit in the app under editing. Although it's not as ideal as the function in Google Drive it works as expected and will do for now.
My first thought was to create a batch file but this wouldn't work if opening it on a browser, while this does!
RaddadAY >right click on file > create a shortcut > cut and paste the shortcut to your other folder.
Peter_Revill I tried creating a shortcut. It works in the explorer/desktop mode, but not in browser mode. In the browser, it creates a link, not a folder. An 'error' message appears stating "Hmmm...it looks like this file doesn't have a preview we can show you." It then prompts a download folder, which also doesn't work. It's very clunky and cumbersome.
RaddadAY Did you ever get a resolution to this? I am trying to do the same. Thank you.
- You can do this indeed. You have to save the main document into the primary folder. Then once saved right click on that file and create a shortcut. Once the shortcut to that file has been created you can copy and paste the shortcut into as many other onedrive files as you wish. This means that it does not matter which one you open and edit it in it always edits the original document.
- How can you make sure that only the owner can edit? I change the statut to view only before sharing but when the person open it in his folder he still have the edit option. Thanks!
- Either it's been shared before, at the folder level, or possibly if an internal user uses a link it may have added direct permission for the user. If it's an office document, you can open the file, then click Share in the top right corner and there is a Manage access option. Go there and you can see the direct access permissions. If that is clean, you can click Advanced, then check the advanced permissions page and see there what current permissions are and if you need to reinherit permissions or not etc.
Hawka2610 Is it possible to do this with folders? G-Drive also allows for shortcut links to folders, which makes for a lot less admin when needing these accessible from multiple Teams.
- so, the shortcut is saved in other folders? And, when the primary is updated all of the shortcuts made from the primary are changed, too? If that is correct, then that is a decent solution. Thank you!
Hi RaddadAY
One solution that's close to what you want to accomplish in OneDrive is to create a linked document in the folder via: +New > Link...
This creates a linked file in Onedrive from another location.The Link pane provides recent documents you've opened to link to (handy), or you can provide an explicit URL to link to. Every document has a unique URL (right-click document/file use 'Copy Link' to access it).
Hope this helps.
- Thank you, solution worked perfectly
- When I tried this, all I got was a text file saved in the folder. How will anyone know to open that text file to open the link to an unkown file?
- Does this have to be done in the web version, or can it be done in Finder for Mac?
- What is the logic behind having multiple files showing vs. a single file in a shared location that people know where to go edit the file?
You can create links or basically shortcuts that point to other files but you would manually have to do it. Clicking new in the folder you are in then link will allow you to paste a link to the source file.ChrisWebbTech The logic for me is i'm an English teacher and all of my planning resources are on one-drive in subfolders. So, I have one folder for all of my texts and their related resources, but another folder for more general topics like genre or visual imagery. What I want to do is link a few key texts into my genre folder, so they're there for easy access if I am say looking at planning a genre study, but then also have them in my subfolder for texts in case I want to do them separately; but I can't just copy/ past the folder because when I add resources to it. For instance, if I am collecting resources for Frankenstein, I'd want them to appear in my Frankenstein subfolder under both the 'text' folder and the gothic horror sub folder of my genre folder, so when I am looking for ideas as to what to teach, I see Frankenstein as an option for a gothic horror genre study or a standalone novel study.
I've tried linking and that kind of works, but I also use One-drive on the desktop, and the link only takes you to the online browser and while that's not a deal-breaker, it would be good to move between linked folders as smoothly as you go between normal folders.
ChrisWebbTech The reason for wanting to share the same file in different folders is logical. We want to share some files with different people, but not all should have access to the same files. Some materials should go to my digital marketing team and some, but not all, to my franchisee partners, because the digital marketing team must edit some of them. I don't understand why someone would ask the question of why would you want that. The question and the need is there. What we are looking for is the answer, not another person asking us to explain why. Thank you for everyone's contribution to this very important need. It also takes up more storage space to have the same multi-gigabyte folders saved in 3-4 places. As the original poster mentioned, Google Drive makes it very easy, but Microsoft makes most things difficult.
Marc_1056 Simple, asking why, helps understand the problem to offer alternative solutions by understanding the requirement.
Folder based file systems exist so that users can explore data when they don't know that it exists, so this is necessarily not about the situation where users already have a link to the file.
Hierarchical file systems where a file can appear in only one folder limit how many categories that file can belong to - a tree structure. Allowing files to appear in more than one folder allows it to have multiple categories, which may be more convenient for searchers.
I've tried to use Shortcuts to achieve something like this, BUT the created shortcut uses the exact local file system path and not the OneDrive path, so the shortcuts don't work on my laptop for example when created on my desktop PC. It would be great if this could be fixed.
- No, unfortunately not! A link point to one location! Why do you need the same document on several places in your onedrive? If you want several files and only update it from one location you could maybe see if you could build a flow? Like copying a file to other locations when changed or on scheduled periods! Haven’t checked if this is possible in this particular way though
