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I have some files that are stored in Onedrive folder and I want to create shortcuts to my desktop for the files that I work on these days. Is working on those shortcut files will guarantee that any update will reflect on the original (One drive file)?

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Shortcuts under windows aren't "symbolic links", they literally are just files containing the target path. Clicking on these instructs the Explorer, or the file selection dialog, to go open the target location and return the resulting file name instead.

So, you cannot really "work" on these shortcuts – you work on the target file that they point to.

Now in the case of OneDrive, that means you always work on the local copy of the file, as usual, which gets synchronized whenever it's possible (and the OneDrive Windows integration feels like it).

So, there's two levels of indirection here

  1. Shortcut on desktop: File that contains the target path in a folder on your machine
  2. File in that folder: watched by the OneDrive client and automatically updating and updated by the file on the OneDrive remote storage
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    so you mean the shortcut will facilitate reaching to that path?. So when I open the the shortcut it will take me to that path and then working in any file there and saving will be reflected because basically I have opened the file from the original place.
    – Sahran
    Commented Oct 30, 2023 at 14:38
  • @Sahran syncing the shortcut will result in only the shortcut file itself being in onedrive. Anything in the file or folder that the shortcut links to will not be saved in onedrive (unless it's a shortcut to something in the onedrive folder).
    – PC Luddite
    Commented Oct 30, 2023 at 23:59

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