Pro Tip: Force Update OneDrive

Jim Szymanski | April 19, 2016 | Cool stuff, General, Microsoft, OneDrive, Windows 10 | No Comments

I bet there have been times where you wished there was a way to update your OneDrive folder so it would sync up “immediately”. You know, like Dropbox. With 1.2TB of available storage in my OneDrive account, I can’t tell you how frustrating it has been when I try to move a file from one device to another. Usually giving up and emailing the file to myself, like I did in 1994. Really!

Well fret no more. YouTube contributor MattIsHere has solved the issue. It’s a sloppy solution, requiring a batch file. But it’s quick and it works like a charm.

You need to open Notepad on your Windows PC, click File/New and enter the following lines, exactly as noted (copy/paste if you can):

@echo off
taskkill /f /im onedrive.exe
start %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\OneDrive.exe /background
PAUSE

Note that you can remove the PAUSE in the last line, which forces the Batch file to wait for you to tap any key to close. Without the PAUSE, the Batch file will run in a flash and you won’t see what actually happened. Your choice.

Save the file as something like, OneDriveRestart.bat (Note: you can only edit batch files in Notepad with a .txt extension. So you might need to rename the file temporarily if you need to make changes). Save it to a folder where you won’t be moving it around. I use a bunch of Batch files, so I have a folder called Batch. Close Notepad, navigate to File Explorer where you saved your file. Right click the file and click Send To….Desktop.

You can rename the desktop shortcut to something like OneDrive Restart. Double-click the shortcut and the batch will run, resulting in the below message (if you left PAUSE in the script). If you’re moving a file from one machine to the other, you need to create the batch file/shortcut on both machines and restart the sending machine OneDrive, followed by restarting the receiving machine OneDrive.

Finally, a way to access your OneDrive files immediately. With this trick, I may actually start using OneDrive more. Maybe Microsoft can add a Refresh button and save us all some time. Any maybe I’ll sort a Unicorn on my drive home tonight.