I’d like to backup all of the documents on my computer hard drive to the cloud. For cloud storage I use Dropbox.

(If you want to set up your backups the same way and you don’t have Dropbox yet, if use the link above, or this link to Dropbox ,we both get 500 megabytes of free extra bonus space! To get the free extra space, you must download Dropbox to your computer and verify your email with Dropbox. You need to do that to be able to use Dropbox the way I’m going to show you anyway, so it’s not an extra step. They have a great tutorial to get you started. Also, when you sign up using that link, I get your email, but I won’t use it or sell it. If you want to get my newsletter, please sign up at the top of this page.)

So, if you signed up for Dropbox and downloaded it to your computer, you now have a Dropbox folder on your computer. This is where you put all the files you want backed up to Dropbox.

Most programs when you save a file for the first time will automagically find your “Documents” folder on your hard drive and save things to there. So, naturally, it seems like you should just drag, copy that file into your Dropbox folder. But you can’t. Because Microsoft has made your Documents folder some type of special locked up type folder. Here’s the work around.

How to backup My Documents with Dropbox

1. In your file explorer, go into the files in your Dropbox folder. Make a new folder and name it, something like Dropbox Documents.

2. Right click on the folder, choose copy.

3. In your file explorer, go into your Documents folder on your hard drive, right click, and choose “paste shortcut.”

That’s it!

Now when ever a program prompts you to save into your Documents folder, you’ll see the reminder to save it into this folder and it will be backed-up automatically to Dropbox when you’re connected to the internet.

(Note: If you do this and then drag all your existing documents into this folder, it might take awhile for all your documents to backup. Like, I really long while. 🙂 So make sure you leave your computer on to give it enough time. I might or might not have had this problem. Also, my computer experts tell me that this really isn’t a good solution for documents you are actively editing, because it can take awhile to sync. It would be best to use this for backups and make a copy on a regular schedule. Unfortunately, there is nothing regular about my schedule, so that hasn’t worked for me. Just remember, backing up even sporadically and uneven is better than not backing up at all!)