How to Sync Files in Microsoft Teams with a Computer

This practical guide walks through how to sync files in Microsoft teams with a computer, explains the main requirements, and highlights common issues that may appear along the way.

To sync your Microsoft Teams files, you need to have OneDrive installed first. If you're signed in to Teams with a Microsoft account - even with a free account - you'll have access to OneDrive, even if you're not in need of it.

Working in the background, OneDrive is a SharePoint site, and Microsoft Teams stores all of your files in dedicated SharePoint sites. To sync the above files from your Microsoft Teams account with your device, you'll need to have the Drive client installed on your computer to handle the communication with SharePoint. Microsoft Teams on the web will not do this.

Steps to sync files between Teams and computer

To start syncing Microsoft Teams files, on any channel, navigate to the ' File ' tab , then click ' Sync '.

Microsoft Teams will try to establish a connection with the OneDrive client on your device.

If you don't have the OneDrive client installed, click the ' Get the Latest Version of OneDrive ' link and follow the instructions to install this app on your computer.

Once OneDrive is installed (or if you already have one), Microsoft Teams will ask you to sign in to your Microsoft account.

If you've set up two-factor authentication on your Office 365 account, you'll have to verify your sign-in using the corresponding authenticator app or SMS code.

By default, your files will be synchronized in the Users folder [username] [organization name] [group - channel] . Click ' Change Location ' To change the location of the stored files, then click ' Next '.

There will be three information pages describing how to share and where your files will appear one by one, click ' Next ' to go through them. On the ' Get the Mobile App ' page, click ' Later '.

On the next screen that appears, click ' Open My OneDrive Folder '.

A file explorer window will immediately open. Here, you'll find your synced Microsoft Teams files in a folder named by groups and channels.

Any changes you make on your device are automatically synced with Microsoft Teams and vice versa. Also, any changes others make to files in Microsoft Teams will be automatically synced to your device. If you're working offline, syncing happens once you're back online.

There will only be one channel synced at a time, so To sync files from another channel, you'll have to go through this process again.

Stop syncing files between Microsoft Teams and OneDrive

If you delete a synced document from OneDrive, it will also be deleted from Teams, or you'll need to stop folder syncing. To do this, open the OneDrive app, choose ' Help & Settings ', then click ' Settings '.

Under the ' Account ' tab , find the channel you are syncing to, click ' Stop sync ' and then click ' OK '.

On the confirmation window that pops up, go ahead and click ' Stop Sync '.

Any changes you make to the file will no longer be synced with Microsoft Teams. Also, changes made to files in the client application will no longer be synchronized with files on your computer. This means you can delete files from your computer, but they'll still be on Teams.