Local Backup of OneDrive folder contents since Monterey (backup using Chronsync or Carbon Copy Cloner)

I, like many Mac users, like to use OneDrive (despite it being Microsoft) as a cloud storage solution as it works well with Office 365 applications. As well as having the benefit of my data being stored in the cloud for everywhere access, I like to keep copy of the data always saved locally on my Mac hard drive, and to use backup software like Chronosync or Carbon Copy Cloner to maintain backup copies with versions, locally on an external HDD connected via USB to my Mac

Since Monterey, the way that Onedrive and Mac OS works has changed, and caused certain confusions and issues for users like me trying to do what I do with my OneDrive data

I thought this forum might be interested in the way I have worked around dealing with the issues, as set out below. The solution set out talks about the settings used in Chronosync, as that is the backup software I use, but there are similar options in Carbon Copy Cloner to do the same thing for users of that backup software.

SITUATION 

Since MacOS Monterey, the location of OneDrive files stored locally on your Mac has changed. All locally stored files are now in the hidden library folder User/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal. Apple puts an ALIAS in the users home folder, named “OneDrive” which points to this hidden library folder where the data actually is kept, if stored locally on your Mac.

In order to successfully use Chronosync to backup the data in your OneDrive to a local external HDD connected to your Mac, it is first necessary to force OneDrive to always store a copy of all files on the local computer, and not save storage space by keeping the data in the cloud and only keeping pointers to that data locally. To force OneDrive to always keep a local copy of all data on your Mac can be done easily by: in Finder, navigate to the OneDrive folder choosing to View in "Icon view". This will show all the sub-folders in your OneDrive folder as icons on the screen. Then right click in any blank space between the icons and choose to “Always keep on this Device”. This will apply the setting on ALL folders in your OneDrive to always store a copy locally on the Mac (as well as being stored in the cloud).

Once this has been done, you can set up backup tasks in Chronosync or Carbon Copy Cloner and the Onedrive files will be backed up to the local external HDD

For example, if you set up a task in Chronosync to backup the whole of the user Home Folder, all the Onedrive files will be part of that backup. However, when you look for the files backed up on the target external HDD drive, you cannot see the OneDrive files default as they are still in a hidden library folder structure on the backed up target drive. To see the OneDrive data on the backup HDD, you need to change the view settings to show all hidden files every time you look. This is somewhat cumbersome and not intuitive for many users (including me), so I developed this workaround in Chronosync: (CCC can do the same in its settings) 

WORKAROUND

1) Create a new Chronsync backup task of the complete user Home Folder. Call the task something like “Home Folder Backup"

2) Within that task, in the source target settings, choose to "Analyse". Within these settings you can choose to finesse which folders and files to INCLUDE in the backup job and which to EXCLUDE. Navigate to the Onedrive Alias, right click and EXCLUDE this from the backup task. Then navigate to Library/CloudStorage/Onedrive-Personal, right click and EXCLUDE that from the backup job too

3) Set your target location as appropriate on your external HDD (I suggest creating a folder called "Home Folder Backups" to hold the backup data on the external disk) and save this task. Running this task will backup the whole user Home Folder, EXCEPT for the ONEDRIVE files which are exluded  

4) Now create a second new backup task in Chronosync - calling it something like "OneDrive Backup”

5) Within the task settings, in the source target options, select CHOOSE, and ensure the "show hidden folders" is ticked. Then navigate to Library/CloudStorage/Onedrive-Personal and select that folder as the source folder for the backup task.

6) Choose an appropriate target folder for the backup task (I suggest creating a folder on the target drive called OneDrive Backup for this), and save the job

7) Finally create a "container" to run both the new tasks in batch sequence on whatever schedule you want.

When you go looking to restore anything from your external backups of your OneDrive data, you can now easily see the data on the target drive in the "OneDrive Backup” folder without having to worry about viewing hidden folders.

Hope that helps - it works for me