OneDrive is one of the most famous cloud storage services provided by Microsoft, which can back up your personal and work files online. It's built into Windows 10 and offers a web app, desktop app, and mobile app to meet different needs.

OneDrive offers 5 GB free storage space for each registrant, with 100 GB, 1 TB, and 6 TB storage options available either separately or with Office 365 subscriptions. Generally, you can manually back up Windows 7/8/10/11 files to OneDrive via the web app. If you have installed the OneDrive desktop app on your PC, you can also use this app to automatically back up your PC to the OneDrive cloud.

Can I back up Windows 10 to OneDrive?

Many OneDrive users may wonder if they can back up their Windows 10 system to OneDrive in order to restore the Windows system directly from OneDrive later without reinstalling Windows system. However, whether it's the web app or desktop app, it allows you to back up files or folders only.

"Can I backup the Windows 10 system to my OneDrive so that I can restore the system settings and apps with one click, with a good internet connection, when I reinstall the Windows 10 system on this laptop? Looking forward to your kind reply! Thanks!"

System backup involves making a backup copy of the entire Windows operating system that is running on your PC, as well as all your programs, files, and settings. This type of system backup can run into dozens of gigabytes, even hundreds of gigabytes. So, you can’t back up the entire Windows 10 system to OneDrive directly if you are using the free version because it only has 5GB of free cloud storage.

But don’t worry, if you need to back up your Windows 10 system to OneDrive, you can rely on the professional backup tool to create a Windows 10 system image, which is a folder. And then you can backup the Windows 10 system image to OneDrive for safekeeping.

3 free ways to backup Windows 10 system to OneDrive

In the following content, we will introduce 3 ways to back up the Windows 10 system to OneDrive:

• Way 1. Backup Windows System to OneDrive with a free cloud backup service
• Way 2. Backup Windows 10 to OneDrive directly via a free Windows backup tool
• Way 1. Create a system image and copy it to the OneDrive folder

The first and second are to use a third-party backup tool to back up the Windows 10 system to OneDrive directly. This method can save your time and energy.

The third way is to create a Windows 10 system image with Windows' built-in backup tool and put the Windows 10 system image into the OneDrive folder to sync it to the cloud.

Way 1. Backup Windows System to OneDrive with a free cloud backup service

The easiest way to backup Windows 10 to OneDrive directly is using the free cloud backup solution - CBackup, which allows you to automatically backup system files to OneDrive without effort. Data in Windows 10 is all supported to be backed up, including Windows 10 mail backup, Windows 10 programs backup, etc.

CBackup provides backup capabilities across different clouds. It simplifies backup steps and provides a backup success rate. Here is how to perform a Windows 10 system backup to OneDrive with CBackup:

1. Please download and install the CBackup desktop app, then apply for a free account and sign in.

2. Tap the Storage on the left, then select OneDrive, and click Authorize Now. Then follow the steps to grant CBackup access to your OneDrive files.

3. Click Backup > Backup PC to Public Cloud.

4. Select the system C drive that contains the Windows 10 system files as the backup source, and then choose OneDrive as the backup location. 

 (Optional) If you would like to back up your Windows 10 system to OneDrive automatically, you could choose Settings on the bottom left corner to select Scheduler, which makes you back up system files to OneDrive daily, weekly, or monthly.

5. Press the Start Backup button to backup the system image to OneDrive automatically in Windows 10.

Way 2. Backup Windows 10 to OneDrive directly via a free Windows backup tool

AOMEI Backupper Standard is a free and professional backup and restore software that can help you back up your system to the cloud, external hard drives, NAS/Network drives, and so on. You can backup only the system partitions, not including the data partitions, and do what you want to do.

Please follow the steps below to perform a Windows 10 backup to OneDrive using AOMEI Backupper Standard:

Step 1. Download and install the OneDrive desktop app on your computer first. After setting up, OneDrive will create a folder on your computer (C:\Users\\[your username]\OneDrive) to sync your files automatically.

Step 2. Download, install, and launch AOMEI Backupper Standard. Click “Backup” and select “System Backup”.

Step 3. The required system partition(s) is (are selected by default. Choose the destination path to store the Windows 10 system backup by browsing and locating “C:\Users\[your username]\OneDrive”.

Step 4. Confirm the operation and click “Start Backup” to perform a Windows 10 system image backup to OneDrive.

Way 3. Create a system image and copy it to the OneDrive folder

Windows' built-in tool called Backup and Restore (Windows 7) can help you create a system image and backup the image to local hard drives, external hard drives, DVDs, or Network drives with ease. Please check the steps:

Step 1. Tap the Search button on the taskbar and type “backup” in the search box. Select “Backup and Restore (Windows 7)” from the search results. Or, choose "Backup settings" > "Go to Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" in order.

Step 2. Click the “Create a system image” option, and then hit “Next”.

Step 3. Select a local hard drive to save the Windows 10 backup. Then click “Next”. Confirm the backup settings and click “Start backup” to perform a Windows 10 backup.

Step 4. The folder for your backup on the target hard drive will be named "WindowsImageBackup". Just copy the entire folder to the OneDrive folder with administrator rights. OneDrive will sync it to the cloud automatically.

Bonus tip: How to protect your OneDrive files for free?

Nowadays, users prefer to back up important data to OneDrive, including system images, to avoid losing all data at once when encountering natural disasters, theft, fire, etc. However, data in OneDrive is also not absolutely safe due to human errors, technical bugs, hacker attacks, and so on. So, it is necessary to make a copy of your OneDrive files in advance.

Since cloud storage is currently the most secure data storage method, you are advised to keep your backup version in another cloud storage. In this way, even if you lose your data in the original cloud storage, you have a backup version in hand.  You can restore the data from your backup destination to the original location or a new location at any time.

To save your time and effort, you can do a cloud-to-cloud backup with a professional cloud backup service like the following:

With CBackup, you can easily and quickly back up all or part of the OneDrive files to another cloud storage or another OneDrive account. 

In addition, CBackup offers many useful backup settings like Scheduled Backup, File Filter, Email Notification, and so on to improve your backup efficiency. 

What's more, all the mentioned features and backup settings are free, and CBackup is very easy to use. So, you don't have to worry about anything, and you can just have a try. 

Let’s see how to backup files between cloud storage (take backup OneDrive to Google Drive for example) with CBackup:

Step 1. Please log in to the CBackup desktop app.

Step 2. Add and authorize your account of cloud storage under the “Storage” tab. Choose the Google Drive icon and click “Add”, then edit the settings for Google Drive. (If you have added OneDrive to the CBackup desktop app, it will be listed automatically under Storage)

Step 3. Click on the “Backup” tab, then click the “Backup Public Cloud to Public Cloud” button to create your backup task.

Step 4. Then, name your backup task, and add OneDrive as the backup source. Choose Google Drive as the backup destination and click “Start Backup” to backup OneDrive to Google Drive easily.

★Tips: 

You can select certain files on OneDrive as the backup source or select the entire OneDrive as the backup source. 

You can click the “Settings” button before starting backup to enjoy the “File Filter”, "Email Notification", and  "Scheduler" features. 

After backing up, you can easily restore the files that have been previously backed up to the original location or a new location with CBackup.

CBackup is also a cloud sync tool that allows you to sync files between cloud storage. Besides, you could backup your PC to OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, cloud (10 GB free), or the combined cloud easily and efficiently. If you meet any problems during the process of using OneDrive or you are looking for a cost-effective cloud backup service, CBackup is a great choice.

Conclusion

You can learn how to back up a Windows 10 system to OneDrive according to the contents above, and the three ways are freeway, you can choose any one ways to follow. By the way, don’t forget to protect your data in OneDrive with CBackup. It is easy to use. No matter you need a OneDrive client alternative or a cloud backup service alternative, it can offer help.