How to use multiple OneDrive accounts for free in Windows 10

multiple-onedriveOneDrive is Microsoft‘s cloud storage platform. Since the launch of Windows 10, it is characterized by being integrated into the operating system. Thanks to the Microsoft Account, we can always have all the files at hand directly from the file explorer.

Although the Windows 10 OneDrive client is very simple to configure and use, home users have a major limitation: they can only set up one account at a time. Luckily, we can use a little trick thanks to which we will be able to use two or more OneDrive accounts at the same time in Windows 10.

If we try to log in to the OneDrive client with a second Microsoft account right now, we can see a message that tells us that we already have an account started, and that to log in with a different account we will have to log out previously.

Error iniciar sesión OneDrive Windows 10

If you need to use two or more OneDrive accounts at the same time , the truth is that Microsoft makes things a bit more complicated. If we don’t mind spending money, we can turn to the OneDrive for companies version. This has advanced account organization functions and allows us to add several accounts to a single client.

But if we want to opt for free, then the options are much more limited. And these are summarized, either in using the web version of OneDrive to access the files (impractical), or resort to the following trick to have the files of all accounts on our computer.



Create multiple accounts and access the OneDrive of each one from File Explorer

Since Windows 10 only allows each user to log in with a OneDrive account, the fastest solution to use multiple accounts is to create several user accounts on the computer , and log in to each of them with a different account.

It is not precisely intuitive, nor is it an official recommendation of Microsoft. However, it is a simple trick that we can all do and, most importantly, it works.

We create a new user account from the Settings> Accounts> Family and other users menu, and we will log in with this user in the Microsoft Account that we want to use. When we arrive at the desktop for the first time, your own OneDrive client will log in and synchronize the cloud data with the PC.

We repeat this process as many times as the number of OneDrive accounts we want to use on the same computer. Each PC user will have an account linked.

How to access the data of each account

Now it will not be necessary to change users again and again to access the data. Even if synchronization on demand is enabled, all files will be accessible from the Windows File Explorer itself. For that, yes, we will have to move to the directory “C: / User /”. There we select the user’s folder we want to use, and open this user’s OneDrive folder. Of course, for security, Windows 10 will ask us to enter the user’s password, or to identify ourselves through Windows Hello .

As we can see, we can access the data of all these accounts directly from the browser.

And to make things even easier, we can create shortcuts to the OneDrive folders of each of these users.

Accesos directos OneDrive Windows 10

In this way, we can always have all the clouds at hand from our main account, and access your data simply by double clicking.