Syncing Team Files

(This guide is designed for organisations running Microsoft 365)

To bridge the gap between the cloud and your local computer, you might want to sync files from Microsoft OneDrive, or Microsoft Teams to your storage device. This is particularly useful if you use Teams within your organisation to store files, but you would like the convenience of having these in your main file browser. You can use this method to sync files from the following storage areas with your local computer:

• OneDrive (for Business)
• SharePoint
• Teams

This guide is designed for Windows 10 devices, however the same process will also work on Mac – you will of course need to install the Mac versions of the apps.

Before we start…

In order to sync files with your computer, you will need to ensure that you have the OneDrive client installed. If you need to download this, it is available from Microsoft directly at no cost from this link.

If you have OneDrive installed, you should see one of the below icons at the bottom right of your screen in the ‘Notification Area’. If you cannot see it there, click on the ‘Up’ arrow to open further icons in the ‘System Tray’.

– if you have OneDrive installed, configured and the sync is currently up-to-date.

– if you have OneDrive installed, and it is actively syncing (uploading/downloading) files to/from the cloud.

– if you have installed OneDrive but not yet configured an account or sync (this is most likely).

Setting Up a Sync – Teams

For this guide, we will assume that you have Microsoft Teams installed onto your computer, if not please have a look at this guide. This process will still work with Teams on the web (such as in Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, etc).

1. Launch Teams either via a desktop shortcut, or by locating it in the start menu.
   
2. Navigate to the Team (and if necessary, channel) that you want to sync files from. In this case, we are going to sync from a Team named ‘Legacy Filestore’ and a Channel called ‘Office Documents’.
   
3. Once you are inside this section, navigate to ‘Files’ along the top header.
   
4. You will notice below this an option to ‘Sync’. Click on this to begin the sync set up process.
   
5. The sync should begin to prepare, and you should see a screen similar to the one below. This can take around 30 seconds – depending on your device.
   
6. If you are syncing for the first time, then you may be asked to sign in; simply follow the on-screen instructions. Don’t worry if the step is automatically skipped, you’ve likely already signed into OneDrive on your device.
   
7. During the set up process, you will be given the ability to change the default location of your OneDrive folder. For most users, the default will work just fine.
   
8. Once you have worked your way through a brief tutorial of how the OneDrive sync client works, you should see a success message similar to the one below.
   
9. Click on ‘Open my OneDrive folder’ to see the newly created folder where your synchronised content will be held. You will notice a new ‘Organisation’ in your File Explorer; this will house all shared files within your organisation. The name is not changeable. You can see on the example screenshot below that our files have begun to sync. Assuming that you have both read and write permissions set on the Team, you will be able to make changes on your local device and sync these with the cloud.
   

Please note: The documents are unlikely to appear immediately, as they will need some time to synchronise with your computer. The time that this takes completely depends on: the speed of your computer’s data storage device, your internet connection, the amount and size of files you are syncing, and other variable factors such as the time of day.

Setting Up a Sync – OneDrive/SharePoint

1. Open up the folder that you want to sync in your web browser (Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, etc) as you normally would.
2. Locate the ‘Sync’ option at the top of your folder, and click it.
   
3. Click ‘Open in OneDrive’, or similar, and follow the on-screen instructions. This can take around 30 seconds to appear.
   You may see a screen similar to the below confirming that the sync is preparing in the background.
   
4. Once the sync has been set up, you will be taken to the newly created folder.

Please note: The documents are unlikely to appear immediately, as they will need some time to synchronise with your computer. The time that this takes completely depends on; the speed of your computer’s data storage device, your internet connection, the amount and size of files you are syncing, and other variable factors such as the time of day.