How-To Geek
How to Quickly and Easily Send Files to Your SkyDrive in Windows
We have already shown you how you can share external folders with your SkyDrive, but what if you actually want to copy a file or folder into your SkyDrive folder? Of course copying and pasting is nowhere near geeky enough, so here’s how to add a SkyDrive entry to the Send to menu.
Creating a SkyDrive Link in the Send To Menu
The first thing we need to do is open the path for where the “Send to” shortcuts are stored, so press the Windows + R keyboard combination to open a run box and type “shell:sendto” then hit enter.
When the explorer window open you will see all the items that appear in your “Send to” menu. We are going to create a new entry so click new item –> shortcut, if you are running Windows 7, right click and choose new –> shortcut.
For the location of the item, enter:
%userprofile%\SkyDrive
Then click next.
SkyDrive is a decent name for our shortcut , so just click Finish.
Voila, like magic you can send stuff to your SkyDrive, quickly and easily.
Got Feedback? Join the discussion at discuss.howtogeek.com
Comments (16)
Taylor Gibb is a Microsoft MVP and all round geek, he loves everything from Windows 8 to Windows Server 2012 and even C# and PowerShell. You can also follow him on Google+
- Published 05/1/12
There is a more simple way to do this. All you have to do is go to “%APPDATA%/Microsoft/Windows/SendTo” in an Explorer window and copy a SkyDrive shortcut there.
http://lifehacker.com/5905516/send-files-to-dropbox-google-drive-and-more-from-windows-right+click-menu
Hello, I tried your tip but Windows 7 says it can’t find the location of %userprofile%\SkyDrive. Thanks.
ummm…. huh? All this will do is send the file to c:\users\{yourname} – or if you’re still on XP, c:\documents and settings\{yourname}. where the bit that actually links to skydrive?
When clicking next on create shortcut the following message appears preventing setting up this shortcut
The file%userprofile%\SkyDrivecannot be found
Guys you have to have the SkyDrive app installed, sorry for not mentioning it.
Be sure to use the Browse box in case you installed SkyDrive folder elsewhere. Like I had it on internal D: drive so got the ‘can’t find’ message until pointed to proper folder made by SD app at installation. Works fine then. Great help compared to old tape drive days! So uggie to have to double backup the backups….
Took look at the small prg from right hand column SDExplorer. Makes sort of a virtual skydrive once logged into Live. Drag & drop to it like a HD. Can delete and such but can’t open a file under it. Good for overcoming MS limit on single file u/l size 50MB. SDE ups a single file size to 300MB if need some big file. Also has a mass u/l file module that won’t stop if u/l hits a locked or bad file.
http://www.cloudstorageexplorer.com/
Thanks for today’s article & associated links.
Hi
I run shell:sendto then browsed to the skydrive folder and clicked on that and pushed nexy all done is is now in my send to menu.
I use Robocopy to backup items to SkyDrive, and then Skydrive does the rest all by itself.
_______________________________example:__________________
robocopy “D:\Documents\(the files and folders I want to backup)” “C:\Users\(my user name)\SkyDrive\(name of the folder on SkyDrive)” /MT:10 /mir /XA:SH
pause
(the switches are for mirror the drive, no system attributes and no hidden files will be copied over)
I have a skydrive but no skydrive app. Can’t find a skydrive app.
@john capps and @everyone
Go to the top of this screen and search SKYDRIVE in the HTG search box. Near the top of the list of displayed articles is the one on how to get the SKYDRIVE app.
Works like a champ …. and this sendto trick works great!
I think I saw an article on Lifehacker where they also showed how to do this for Google Drive and Dropbox in addition to SkyDrive. It was the same thing; you just make shortcuts to their respective folders in the SendTo directory like you did here.
thanks for the tip this should be useful when skydrive app is final.
Just a word of warning for Vista users….. Skydrive will only work if you have User Account Control enabled. I disabled UAC about 20 minutes after I got Vista ‘cos it’s a pain in the proverbial butt! There was no way I was going to be “forced” to use it by Skydrive – it simply wasn’t worth the extra hassle just to enable one cloud app, for which there are plenty of alternatives.
Microsoft has provided a file that u can download and install without any trouble..
but tnx for the useful article:
https://skydrive.live.com/
Great articles about SkyDrive! However, the product is virtually useless to many because it can’t be run without UAC enabled! I loved the fact that MS gave me 25GB of SkyDrive space – but I’ll have to stick with Dropbox because it (at least) will run with UAC disabled…
After yet another day of research and testing I have a highly workable interim solution to the dreaded UAC problem… http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/skydrive-wlsecurity/why-wont-skydrive-run-with-administrator-accounts/17ab7ac5-fffe-43f3-a15d-b3b14a42428d?msgId=4c9be37b-23fa-42d2-9004-017e5ca0cee8 . Enjoy!