OneDrive copy

To or from a personal OneDrive

A OneDrive is a site collection like any other, so the same clone engine copies it. What differs is the scope: only the libraries and lists you tick, plus the permissions and groups they need. A whole-site copy is deliberately not offered here.

What it does

• Which libraries and lists in the OneDrive are in scope, because you ticked them.
• Files arrive with their version history and their original Created By and Modified By.
• The permissions and groups the copied libraries need come with them.

How it runs

1. Sign in to both ends. Source and destination sign in independently, because they are frequently different tenants with different accounts. Both are asked for up front, not halfway through the run.
2. Pick the OneDrive. A OneDrive appears in the site list like any other site, and can be pasted in by URL.
3. Tick what to copy. Documents is the usual answer, and it can be narrowed to folders inside it.
4. It runs. Per-library progress. Cancel offers Finish the current item, Stop now, or Keep running. Nothing is left half-written: an item is either done or not started.

How it works

A copy to or from a OneDrive always takes the lists and libraries path. No site-level pass runs against the OneDrive, so its title, logo, navigation and settings are never written, whichever end it is on. Libraries are matched by title, and a matched library is recorded as pre-existing: it is treated as the person's own data, so you are asked about content already in it and its items are compared rather than assumed new.

When the OneDrive is the destination, it is treated as its own site collection, so the temporary changes the content stage makes (the import identity as site collection administrator, and, where the app has tenant administrator access, custom scripts allowed while site pages import) are made on that OneDrive and undone there. On a source OneDrive you are not an administrator of, the run tries to add the reading account as a site collection administrator when that account is a SharePoint administrator; that grant is left in place afterwards.

What you need

• Site collection administrator on the OneDrive. For somebody else's OneDrive that generally means being made a secondary owner, or using an app-only credential.

What it will not do

• A whole-site copy is not offered, on purpose: it would overwrite the person's own site name, logo and settings, and a team site's Shared Documents does not match a OneDrive's Documents anyway.
• A OneDrive that has never been provisioned does not exist yet and cannot be a destination. Have the person open theirs once first.

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