Microsoft's Copy to command brings across the newest version of each file and nothing older. For a folder of finished PDFs that hardly matters. For a contract that went through forty drafts in someone's OneDrive, it means the team site gets the final text and none of the record of how it got there.
That one detail decides most of this job. Moving files out of a OneDrive and into a SharePoint team site is easy to start; what takes thought is choosing a route that keeps the parts you will want later (earlier versions, who wrote what and when, who could open it) and getting at a OneDrive that belongs to somebody else. Copying the other way, into a person's OneDrive, has its own guide: migrate SharePoint to OneDrive.
Five routes, and what each one keeps
| Route | Earlier versions | OneDrive left as it was | Into a team site in another tenant | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Move to, in the browser | Microsoft's pages disagree (see below) | No, it is a move | No | 100 GB or 30,000 files per move across sites |
| Copy to, in the browser | No, newest version only | Yes | No | 500 MB at a time from the web, same cross-site cap |
| Sync the OneDrive, then upload the folder | No, a synced folder holds current versions only | Yes | Only if the upload tool can reach the other tenant | Every file has to download to the PC first |
| Microsoft's cross-tenant OneDrive migration | The whole OneDrive moves | No, a redirect is left behind | No, it lands in a OneDrive, not a site | Paid add-on licence per user, one pass, no top-up runs |
| ShareMaster clone (OneDrive copy) | Yes, if you tick Version history | Yes, it copies | Yes | Needs access to the OneDrive (covered below) |
The cross-site figures come from Microsoft's SharePoint limits page, and the 500 MB browser limit from its Copy to article. If no other sites appear when you try to move or copy, your organisation has cross-site moves turned off, and a SharePoint admin has to allow them first.
The Move to contradiction
Microsoft's own documentation does not agree with itself here. The Move to support article warns you when the destination library keeps fewer versions than the source, which implies history goes with the file. The admin article on preserving a former employee's OneDrive says the opposite: only the latest version is moved. Move one file with a long history to a test library and look before trusting either. And remember that a move empties the OneDrive as it goes, so if anything goes wrong halfway you have files in two places and no clean copy of the original.
Move to also keeps only the column values the destination library knows about. A custom column that exists in the OneDrive but not in the team site library is dropped on the way.
Getting into somebody else's OneDrive
Most of these migrations are not people tidying their own files. They are an admin rescuing the files of someone who has left, changed roles or is about to lose their licence. Being a Global or SharePoint admin does not, by itself, let you open another person's OneDrive. Someone has to be made a site collection administrator of it first.
Microsoft's way is in the admin center: open the user under Users > Active users, choose OneDrive, then Create link to files. Microsoft also documents the reverse, removing that access again through the SharePoint admin center's user profiles. It is a separate manual job, and the one most often forgotten, which is how admins end up with standing access to dozens of private OneDrives.
Decide where each folder belongs
Copying a whole OneDrive into one folder called "Sam's files" moves the problem rather than solving it. Group content by what it is:
- Client or project folders go to that client's or project's site.
- Templates and reference material go to the team site that uses them.
- Old, finished work can go to an archive library, or stay put if the OneDrive is being retained anyway.
- Personal drafts and private files are not team content. Leave them, or hand them to the person.
A folder that was already shared with several colleagues is the strongest sign that it was team content all along. Those are the ones worth doing first.
Copying a OneDrive into a team site with ShareMaster
ShareMaster's clone treats a OneDrive as what it is underneath, a SharePoint site collection that belongs to one person, and copies it through Microsoft's Migration API. The OneDrive is left exactly as it was.
- In Migration Tools, start a Structure and content clone and sign in to the source and destination. They can be the same tenant or two different ones.
- Switch the source side from SharePoint to OneDrive. The tenant's users load straight away: filter the list and click the person, or type their email address if they are not in it. The status line shows the OneDrive address it found, so you can see it picked the right person.
- Pick the destination site, then press Continue. ShareMaster checks it can read the OneDrive. Signed in as a SharePoint admin, it makes your account a site collection admin of that OneDrive if you are not one already, holds that access for the run and removes it when the run ends. If it cannot get access, it stops on this screen and says why, instead of running and producing an empty copy.
- The only scope offered is OneDrive copy. A whole-site copy is deliberately left out, because it would rewrite the destination site's name and settings.
- Tick the libraries, folders or individual files on the OneDrive side, and pick the library or folder on the team site where they should land.
- Choose what to copy: Permissions, Version history and Author + dates are separate boxes. Also choose what happens when a file is already at the destination: skip it (the default), overwrite it, or rename the new one.
- Copying between tenants, check how people are matched. The mapping step matches source accounts to accounts in the other tenant, and you can change any match before the run.
- Run it. Anything skipped or retried is listed with the reason. When it finishes you can run a deep or shallow compare of source and destination, and an interrupted run resumes from History.
Because it copies rather than moves, you can run it again later with skip as the existing-file rule to bring across files added since the first pass.
What comes across, and what you still have to do
| Kept by the copy | Left for you |
|---|---|
| Folders and files you ticked, into the library or folder you picked | Deciding the folder map, above |
| Earlier versions of each file, with Version history ticked | Checking the destination library's version limit is high enough to hold them |
| Created and Modified dates and the people in Created By and Modified By, with Author + dates ticked | On a cross-tenant copy, making sure each person has an account to map to |
| Permissions given directly to people and groups, with Permissions ticked | Re-sharing anything that was only shared by link (next section) |
| Nothing on the destination site's own settings is changed | Clearing the OneDrive copy once people have checked |
Sharing links do not travel
A file shared from OneDrive with a "people in your organisation" or "specific people" link gets that access through a group SharePoint creates for the link. Those link groups belong to the original file. ShareMaster does not recreate them at the destination, and where a file's only special access was a sharing link, it leaves the copy inheriting the library's permissions and reports it rather than locking it down. Re-share those from the team site, which is usually what you want anyway: access through the site's groups is far easier to audit than a hundred personal links.
After the copy
- Read the skipped and failed list first. Long paths are the usual cause: SharePoint allows 400 characters for the whole decoded path, and a folder that was fine under a short OneDrive address can go over once it sits inside a site, a library and a parent folder.
- Tell people where their files went, and give them a week or two to check before the OneDrive copy is cleared.
- Find links that still point at the OneDrive. Word and Excel files are the usual hiding place; Replace in SharePoint can find and rewrite them inside document content, and a report-only scan lists every one before anything changes.
- When you clear the source, send it to the recycle bin rather than deleting it permanently, so there is a way back for 93 days.
Weighing this against the Microsoft tools in more detail? The side-by-side is on OneDrive and SharePoint migration options compared, and everything the OneDrive copy does is listed on its feature page.
Questions
Does Copy to keep version history?
No. Only the latest version of each file is copied. That is Microsoft's own statement in the Copy to article.
Can a OneDrive go into a team site in another tenant?
Not with Microsoft's built-in tools. Move to and Copy to stay inside your organisation, and the cross-tenant OneDrive migration lands in a OneDrive, needs a paid add-on licence for each user and runs once with no top-up pass. A tool signed in to both tenants, such as ShareMaster's clone, can copy the folders straight into the destination site.
Do I need the person's password?
No. Access comes from being a site collection administrator of their OneDrive, which a SharePoint admin can grant. ShareMaster does that for the run and takes it away afterwards.
Will the copy use SharePoint storage?
Yes. Files copied into a team site count against the tenant's SharePoint storage, and every earlier version you copy counts too. The OneDrive's own storage is separate, which is one more reason to clear the source once the copy is checked.