2-Way sync doesn't work in OneDrive when using symbolic links or junctions

[ForumBot]

I’ve already read a lot about the problems with Symbolic Links and Windows 10 on internet, but not about the phenomenon I run into now. So here it is…

My goal is to 2-way sync a folder (‘My Music’), located on a separate data partition of my SSD-drive, to the OneDrive cloud via a symbol link. It all works fine… except the 2-way syncing. It stays a 1-way street somehow. :-(

Both the data partition and the Windows system partition have the NTFS file system. The data partition has the letter (`X:`). I have an existing OneDrive account with no files or folders on it yet.

As far as I understand now, creating a junction is the way to go, although creating a symbolic link could work too in this case. The procedure I followed is this:

- Opened my OneDrive account online.

- Set up OneDrive on my computer.

- Keep the standard location of my OneDrive on the system partition: `C:\Users\<my user name>\OneDrive`.

- Opened the command prompt as administrator.

- Created the junction with this command: `mklink /J “C:\Users\<my user name>\OneDrive\My Music” “X:\My Music”`

- The `‘My Music’` link appears as a folder underneath the OneDrive icon in Windows Explorer.

- Tested if the link with the folder `‘My Music’` on my data-partition actually works. And it does perfectly.

- Over to OneDrive online. The `‘My Music’` folder also appeared in my OneDrive online.

- Uploaded a random file from my computer into the `‘My Music’` folder to test the syncing.

- Uploaded file appears in my OneDrive online.

- Back to Windows Explorer on my computer. The uploaded file has appeared in the `‘My Music’` folder on the data partition via the created link.

So far so good. Anything I upload to my OneDrive online appears perfectly in my data partition folder. But the problem is that the 2-way sync fails. If I change anything in the `‘My Music’` folder on the data partition, that change does appear in the same OneDrive folder that is linked (obviously), but that’s where it stops: no syncing to OneDrive online. How come and what is the solution?

Exactly the same happens if I use not a junction, but a symbolic link: `mklink /D “C:\Users\<my user name>\OneDrive\My Music” “X:\My Music”`

And my 2nd question is: how is it possible that the result is exactly the other way around, when I change the procedure and first create the junction (or symbolic link) and then set up OneDrive on my computer? So in that case syncing a file to OneDrive online via the created link works fine, but if I change anything in the ‘My Music’ folder in OneDrive online, that change does not appear in the folder on my data partition. Again, it’s only 1 way.

I just don’t get it. Does anyone have the answers please? Thanks in advance!

[ForumBot]

Per [this thread in Microsoft's forums](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/OneDrive-for-Business/Include-files-in-OneDrive-sync-without-copying-them/td-p/74119), it looks like OneDrive was getting notified of file change events from aliased (junction/symlink) paths around 5/31/2017 (see reply marked best response), but on 1/17/2018 somebody reported that they were broken, and the author of the reply marked best response seemed to confirm that.

The later suggestion to "use hard links" doesn't work, as I believe there are no "directory hard links" in NTFS.

Sad to say, I think this is broken right now.

There are a couple mentions of workarounds in that thread -- [OneDriveBully](https://github.com/ktheod/OneDriveBully/tree/master/OneDriveBully) to manually trigger a (full?) sync of OneDrive periodically, and generic folder sync utilities to 2-way-sync the two directories (incurring 2x disk space and probably lots of headaches when it has to, ie. handle conflicts). I don't like any of them.