BT Cloud, Windows Explorer.

[PeteGly]

I have installed the BT Cloud app on my Windows 10 PC and can see the BT Cloud folder in Windows Explorer and can copy files/folders to that folder.

But those files/folders are showing as being saved to my C: drive, I want BT Cloud as a place to backup my files/folders, they are in effect doubling the usage of my C: drive.

Any help much appreciated.

Pete

[PeteGly]

Rereading my post it’s possible I’ve not made myself very clear.

I currently have circa 200GB of photos. Last year I purchased a new laptop which has a 256GB SSD hard drive, as you can see if I stored my photos on my laptops C: drive it would be virtually full after taking the operating system into account too. So, I purchased an external 500GB SSD drive purely to store my photos on.

Recently I’ve upgraded my broadband package with BT, which comes with 1TB of cloud storage, so I thought it would be a sensible idea to back up my photos to that cloud storage.

However, what’s happened is, when I installed BT Cloud onto my laptop, it has created a “BT Cloud” folder on my laptop and is now duplicating my photos onto my laptop hard drive giving me the problem I specifically wanted to avoid by purchasing the external hard drive.

Is there a way of just transferring a copy of my photos to BT Cloud without it saving another copy to my hard drive?

Thanking you in anticipation of any help.

Peter Glynn

[ArtJP]

Hi Pete,

Did you ever get any reply to your query?

I am in a similar position and there seems to be no guidance as to what the Windows Folder is for.  At the moment where I have backed up my two mobile devised this has created a folder within C:/BT Cloud - why?

Thanks

[pddco]

Hi. The BT Cloud folder is a bit confusing. It would seem the obvious place to put your files for backup, but once you get your head round it it’s really there for your mobile devices (tablets, phones etc).

To keep yourself sane if all you want to do is backup your PC’s files then steer clear of the “BT Cloud” folder for now. 

On the desktop client on your PC you’ll see a ‘Backup’ tab. In there you can decide which files on your PC you want to be copied and uploaded to the BT Cloud (Careful here, we’re talking about the cloud, not the folder).

There’s a browse option to pick the folders etc..

Once you’ve done that the BT Cloud app will then upload copies into the Cloud. If you subsequently modify those files, but keep the same file name, the cloud will keep track of the changes and store previous versions too. 

You can see all your files in the cloud by looking on BT Cloud website and selecting the ‘All My Files’ option on the left hand side toolbar. In there you’ll see your PC name and be able to browse the file structure below it. 

While you’re in ‘All My Files’ you’ll also see a BT Cloud folder. As I say this is more relevant to mobile devices in that if you have the app loaded on say your phone, it’s content would be backed up into there.  It that’s another story... Does this help?

[ArtJP]

Brilliant. Very many thanks.

Presumably it is only the changes that need the system transmits - not the whole data again?

As I understand it deletions stay in the Cloud Deleted folder until deleted a second time from there?

Thanks for your input. I was going round and round in circles yesterday.  gave up and watched the snooker!

Stay safe.

[pddco]

With deletions, from what I’ve seen it’s reasonably difficult to accidentally lose stuff. If you delete a file on your PC the same file will go into the “Deleted items” folder in the cloud. And there it will stay until such time as you delete it in the cloud. Not done it myself but I’m assuming if you completely remove the file from your PC’s recycle bin you’ll be able to Download the original from the cloud ‘Deleted items” folder. 

Just thinking about those files you may have in the BT Cloud folder in your PC taking up SSD space? Those files too will have been backed up in the cloud. 

If you open up the client desktop app and go to the “sync” tab you’ll probably see selected (ticked) folders in there that you copied across from perhaps ‘Pictures’ or ‘Documents’?

If you untick the folder,  the files will be removed from your PC’s BT Cloud folder - It’s also called the ‘Sync’ folder.

The files from your PC’s BT Cloud folder will still be there in the cloud, -  on the website look under ‘All My Files > BT Cloud’  -  but basically you’ve said “I don’t want to maintain a copy on my PC and keep synchronised with any changes etc to then”.  

Remember, this is all separate from what you did with the “Backup” tab. That is still going on quite nicely thank you backing up your files. 

As I said it’s a bit confusing at times. And you may need to have a play and convince yourself as to what is going on. It made my head hurt to start with. Take care out there. 

[ArtJP]

Many thanks for you full reply. Marvellous. Take care.

[PeteGly]

ArtJp and pddco, thank you for your inputs, and apologies for replying before now as nobody replied to my initial post for weeks and just gave it up.

To say the supporting documentation is poor is an understatement. I did find out what I wanted by experimenting and generally playing around, something you shouldn't really have to do.

But thanks again for replying.

Pete