Move OneDrive to Google Drive (2026): 5 Ways Compared + What Won't Transfer

Name: Watch: Five Ways to Move OneDrive to Google Drive
Uploaded: 2023-12-30T00:00:00Z
Description: Recorded in December 2023, this walkthrough demonstrates the five methods covered in this guide. The apps' interfaces have changed since then, but the steps are the same.

Five ways to move OneDrive to Google Drive, the limits that matter (250 GB per file, 750 GB a day) and what never copies over: OneNote, sharing, versions.

Introduction

Short answer: for a few files, download them from OneDrive and upload them to Google Drive in your browser. For a whole OneDrive, or anything bigger than the 10 GB OneDrive allows per zip download, copy cloud-to-cloud instead: CloudsLinker does it on its servers from a browser, rclone does it from the command line. Google Workspace admins moving a whole company can use Google's own OneDrive import. Whichever route you take, Google Drive accepts at most 750 GB of uploads per user per day, Word and Excel files stay in Office format unless you convert them, and OneNote notebooks, sharing links and version history do not come across.

Quick Navigation

Which Method Should You Use?
The Limits That Shape the Move
Preparing for the Transfer
Method One: Cloud-to-Cloud with CloudsLinker
Method Two: Official Desktop Apps
Method Three: rclone
Method Four: AList or OpenList
Method Five: Download and Re-upload in the Browser
For Companies: Google Workspace's OneDrive Import
Comparison of the Five Methods
What Won't Come Across
Video: All Five Methods
Check That Everything Arrived
Frequently Asked Questions

Direction check: this guide moves files from OneDrive to Google Drive. Going the other way? See Google Drive to OneDrive.

Which Method Should You Use?

The right route depends on how much you are moving and whether you want your own computer involved. Find your situation in the left column:

Your situation	Use	Why
A few files, or one folder under 10 GB	Method Five: browser	No tools to install; OneDrive zips a folder download up to 10 GB.
Your whole personal OneDrive, without downloading anything	Method One: CloudsLinker	Runs on servers, keeps going after you close the browser, 10 GB a month free.
You are comfortable with a terminal and want it free	Method Three: rclone	Scriptable, can convert Office files on the way and check the result.
Both desktop apps are already installed and you have spare disk space	Method Two: desktop apps	Drag files from one synced folder to the other.
You already run a self-hosted AList or OpenList server	Method Four: AList / OpenList	Copy between mounted drives in a web UI; traffic goes through your server.
Your company is moving many Microsoft 365 users to Google Workspace	Google Workspace import	Admin tool that copies files, folders and permissions at no extra cost.

The Limits That Shape the Move

A few numbers decide which method works for you. On this route the binding limit is usually Google's daily upload cap, not file size: OneDrive tops out at 250 GB per file, well below anything Google Drive will refuse.

Limit	Value	What it means for you
Largest file in OneDrive	250 GB	Every OneDrive file fits in Google Drive, which takes files up to 5 TB.
OneDrive website download as .zip	10 GB per .zip, 20 GB overall, 10,000 files	Larger folders have to be downloaded in pieces, or copied cloud-to-cloud.
Google Drive uploads per user	750 GB per 24 hours (uploads and copies)	Applies to every method. A 2 TB OneDrive takes at least three days.
Google free storage	15 GB, shared with Gmail and Google Photos	Check your storage plan before you start a large copy.
OneNote notebooks	Cannot be downloaded from the OneDrive website	Export them from the OneNote app; see what won't come across.

Sources: Microsoft's restrictions and limitations in OneDrive and SharePoint and download files and folders pages; Google's storage and upload limits.

Preparing for the Transfer

Five checks before you start save most of the surprises people hit on this move:

Make room in Google Drive: compare the size of your OneDrive with the free space in Google Drive. The free 15 GB is shared with Gmail and Google Photos, so a large OneDrive usually needs a Google One or Workspace plan first.
Pull shared folders into your own files: folders other people shared with you sit under Shared, not in My files, and most transfer tools only read My files. On the OneDrive website, use Add shortcut to My files on each shared folder you want to bring along.
Export OneNote notebooks: notebooks are not ordinary files. The OneDrive website will not download them and copy tools skip them, so export them from the OneNote app before you start.
Decide about Office formats: Word, Excel and PowerPoint files arrive as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx. Google Drive opens and edits them as they are; convert only the ones you will keep editing (File > Save as Google Docs, Sheets or Slides).
Know which OneDrive you have: a personal Microsoft account and a work or school account are different services. In CloudsLinker they are separate connectors (OneDrive and OneDrive for Business), and rclone asks the same question during setup.

If people keep working in OneDrive while you move, plan a final catch-up run at the end. Every method below can be re-run; CloudsLinker and rclone skip files that are already in Google Drive unchanged.

Method One: Cloud-to-Cloud with CloudsLinker

About CloudsLinker:

CloudsLinker is a web app that copies files between cloud accounts on its own servers. Nothing is downloaded to your computer, and a running transfer keeps going after you close the browser or shut your computer down. Both OneDrive and Google Drive connect through their official sign-in pages.

The Google sign-in screenshot below was taken in an earlier version of the CloudsLinker interface; Google's permission screen itself is unchanged. The other CloudsLinker screenshots show the current app.

Step 1: Add Google Drive

Sign in to CloudsLinker, open Add Cloud and choose Google Drive. Google's own sign-in window opens; pick your account and allow access to your Google Drive files. CloudsLinker needs that permission to create folders and write the copied files.

Google sign-in window asking to let CloudsLinker see, edit, create and delete Google Drive files.

Step 2: Add OneDrive

Back in Add Cloud, click Connect on the OneDrive tile for a personal Microsoft account, or on OneDrive for Business for a work or school account; both are marked OAuth. A short notice appears; click Add Now OneDrive to open Microsoft's sign-in page and approve access. You never type your Microsoft password into CloudsLinker. If your organization blocks third-party apps, your Microsoft 365 admin has to approve the connection first.

CloudsLinker Add Cloud page with the Connect Your OneDrive dialog and separate OneDrive and OneDrive for Business tiles, both marked OAuth.

Step 3: Pick the OneDrive Source and the Google Drive Folder

Open Transfer to reach the Create transfer task page. On the left (Source), expand your OneDrive account and tick the folders and files you want to move; you can select several at once, or tick the account itself for the whole drive. On the right (Target), pick your Google Drive account or one folder inside it; the target side only takes folders and lets you create a new one. A dedicated folder such as OneDrive import keeps the copy separate from what is already in your Google Drive and makes the result easy to check.

CloudsLinker Create transfer task page with a OneDrive file selected as the source, a Google Drive account selected as the target, and the options bar with Copy, Move and Create transfer.

Step 4: Set the Options, Then Create the Transfer

The options bar under the two panes, visible at the bottom of the screenshot above, controls how the copy behaves:

Conflict strategy decides what happens when a file with the same name already exists in Google Drive. The default only sends it again if its size is different or the OneDrive copy is newer, which makes re-runs cheap. The other choices skip same-name files entirely or always overwrite them.
Filter limits the job by file extension (only these types, or everything except these types) and by minimum or maximum file size in MB. Handy for sending documents first and large videos later.
Schedule runs the job once at a set time, weekly on chosen days, or monthly on a chosen date. Scheduling is available on paid plans.
Skip Empty Folder leaves out folders with nothing in them.
Copy or Move: Move deletes the files from OneDrive after they are transferred. Leave it on Copy until you have checked the result in Google Drive.

The filter and schedule dialogs look like this; our guides on filters and scheduling walk through them in detail. When the options are set, click Create transfer.

CloudsLinker Files filter dialog: exclude or only transfer listed file extensions, plus maximum and minimum file size in MB (-1 means unlimited).

CloudsLinker Schedule dialog on the Monthly tab, with fields for the day of the month and the time to run, next to the Once and Weekly tabs.

Step 5: Watch the Task Monitor

The new job appears at the top of the Task monitor page with its status, the number of files done, the data transferred and the current speed. Use the All, Running, Scheduled and Failed tabs to find a job, and Retry to run a finished job again. You can close the tab; the job continues on the server.

CloudsLinker Task monitor with a running OneDrive transfer at the top showing files, data completed and speed, above finished tasks with Retry buttons.

Step 6: Check the Files in Google Drive

When the task finishes, open the target folder in Google Drive and compare it with OneDrive: the file count in the Task monitor should match what you selected. Office files keep their .docx, .xlsx and .pptx formats.

Google Drive showing the files copied over from OneDrive.

The free plan covers 10 GB of transfer a month, enough for a typical personal OneDrive's documents; larger moves need a paid plan. Google's 750 GB-per-day upload cap still applies, so for a very large OneDrive, split the job into folders of under 750 GB and run them on consecutive days.

Method Two: Official Desktop Apps

Step 1: Install Both Desktop Apps

Install Google Drive for desktop and the OneDrive app, and sign in to both. Each one adds a folder to your computer that stays in sync with its cloud.

Google Drive for desktop and OneDrive folders side by side on a computer.

Step 2: Copy From the OneDrive Folder to the Google Drive Folder

Select files in the OneDrive folder and copy them into the Google Drive folder; Google Drive for desktop then uploads them. Watch out for online-only files: by default OneDrive keeps many files in the cloud only (Files On-Demand), so copying them first downloads them to your disk. Make sure you have enough free space for whatever you copy in one go, and leave the computer on and awake until Google Drive shows the upload as finished.

Copying files from the OneDrive folder into the Google Drive folder on a desktop.

This is the most familiar option if you already use both apps, but every byte goes down to your computer and back up again, so it suits a few gigabytes better than a whole account.

Method Three: rclone

Step 1: Install rclone

rclone is a free, open-source command-line tool that works with both OneDrive and Google Drive. Download it from the official install page; our Dropbox to Google Drive guide shows the installation step by step.

Step 2: Add Google Drive

Run rclone config, create a new remote (for example gdrive), choose Google Drive as the storage type and complete the sign-in in your browser.

Configuring a Google Drive remote with rclone config.

Step 3: Add OneDrive

Create a second remote (for example onedrive) with Microsoft OneDrive as the type. After the browser sign-in, rclone asks which kind of drive to use; choose the personal or business OneDrive that holds your files.

Step 4: Copy, Then Check

Copy everything into a dedicated Google Drive folder:

rclone copy onedrive: "gdrive:OneDrive import" --progress --drive-stop-on-upload-limit

--drive-stop-on-upload-limit makes rclone stop cleanly when Google's 750 GB daily cap is reached instead of retrying for hours; run the same command the next day and it picks up where it left off. To turn Office files into Google Docs, Sheets and Slides during the copy, add --drive-import-formats docx,xlsx,pptx.

Then compare the two sides:

rclone check onedrive: "gdrive:OneDrive import" --one-way

OneDrive and Google Drive use different checksum types, so by default rclone check compares file names and sizes. Add --download for a byte-by-byte comparison, which downloads both copies and takes much longer.

rclone copying files from a OneDrive remote to a Google Drive remote in a terminal.

Two rclone specifics on this route: OneNote notebooks are hidden from listings by default, and folders that were only shared with you are not visible unless you first add a shortcut to them in My files. rclone is free and precise, but the data passes through the computer running it, which has to stay on; to repeat the copy on a schedule, use cron or Windows Task Scheduler.

Method Four: AList or OpenList

Read this first: in mid-2025 the AList project was reportedly sold, and its community forked it as OpenList over concerns about the new owner's changes. If you want this method, start with OpenList (documentation) rather than an AList download. The screenshots and commands below come from AList v3; OpenList keeps the same workflow, so check its documentation for current command names.

Step 1: Install and Start the Server

AList and OpenList are self-hosted web apps that mount several cloud drives in one browser interface. Download a release for your system and run it from PowerShell or a terminal.

Step 2: Create an Admin Password and Log In

In AList v3, alist admin random prints a random admin password and alist server starts the service. Open http://127.0.0.1:5244 in your browser and log in with that password.

Running the AList admin and server commands in PowerShell.

AList login page on localhost port 5244.

Step 3: Add OneDrive and Google Drive as Storages

Go to Manage > Storages and add a OneDrive storage and a Google Drive storage. Both need OAuth tokens (a refresh token and client details) that you generate following the project's driver documentation, which is the fiddliest part of this method.

AList storage settings page for adding OneDrive and Google Drive.

Step 4: Copy Between the Two Mounts

On the home page, select files in the OneDrive mount and use Copy (or Move) to send them to a folder in the Google Drive mount.

Copying files from the OneDrive mount to the Google Drive mount in AList.

The copy runs on whatever machine hosts the server, using its bandwidth. It makes sense if you already run AList or OpenList for other reasons; setting it up just for one migration is more work than Method One or Method Three.

Method Five: Download and Re-upload in the Browser

Step 1: Download From OneDrive

Sign in to OneDrive on the web, select the files or folders and click Download. Folders and multiple selections come down as a .zip, limited to 10 GB per zip, 20 GB overall and 10,000 files, so split bigger folders into several downloads. Unzip the files on your computer.

Downloading files and folders from the OneDrive website.

Step 2: Upload to Google Drive

Open Google Drive and use New > Folder upload (or File upload) to send the unzipped files. If you want Office files turned into Google Docs, Sheets and Slides as they upload, switch on Convert uploads in Google Drive's settings first; it only affects browser uploads.

Uploading a folder to Google Drive from the web interface.

Nothing to install, but you pay for it twice in bandwidth and time, and a OneNote notebook inside a folder download is replaced by a .txt error note instead of the notebook.

For Companies: Google Workspace's OneDrive Import

If an organization is moving its staff from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace, Google has a built-in admin tool for OneDrive. It is meant for company accounts on both sides and needs two admins:

Who runs it: a Google Workspace super admin starts the import, and a Microsoft Global Administrator connects the source tenant.
What it copies: files, folders and permissions from each OneDrive user to the matching Workspace user. OneDrive itself is not changed.
Scale and cost: up to 500 OneDrive users per import, at no additional cost. Google announced a faster advanced mode for large migrations in August 2026.

Details are in Google's help article Migrate files from a OneDrive account and the Workspace Updates announcement. For one person's account, or for a team without admin access on both sides, the five methods above are the way to go.

Comparison of the Five Methods

Method	Advantages	Disadvantages
Cloud-to-cloud with CloudsLinker	Nothing passes through your computer; keeps running when you close the browser; filters, Copy or Move, and scheduled re-runs.	Free plan is 10 GB a month; scheduling and larger volumes need a paid plan.
Official desktop apps	Familiar drag and drop; nothing extra to learn.	Downloads and re-uploads everything; needs free disk space and a computer that stays on.
rclone	Free; can convert Office files, stop at the daily cap and verify the result.	Command line only; data flows through the machine running it.
AList or OpenList	Web interface for copying between mounted drives.	Token setup is fiddly; AList's 2025 change of ownership means using the OpenList fork; uses the server's bandwidth.
Browser download and upload	No tools; fine for a few files.	10 GB per zip download; slow for large folders; skips OneNote notebooks.

All five respect the same Google limit of 750 GB of uploads per user per day. None of them copies sharing permissions or version history; only Google's admin import carries permissions across.

What Won't Come Across

Whichever method you choose, a OneDrive to Google Drive move copies files. These things are not files, or not yours, and need separate handling:

OneNote notebooks: stored in a special format; the OneDrive website cannot download them and copy tools skip them. Export them from OneNote first.
Sharing links and permissions: anyone you shared OneDrive files with will not have access to the Google Drive copies. Share the important folders again once the copy is done.
Version history: only the current version of each file is copied. If you need an older version, restore it in OneDrive before you move.
Files shared with you: they belong to someone else's OneDrive. Add a shortcut to My files for the folders you need, or ask the owner to share them again from Google Drive.
Native Google formats: not a loss, but a surprise for many people: Office files stay Office files in Google Drive unless you convert them.

Watch: Five Ways to Move OneDrive to Google Drive

Recorded in December 2023, this walkthrough demonstrates the five methods covered in this guide. The apps' interfaces have changed since then, but the steps are the same.

Check That Everything Arrived

Do these checks before you delete anything from OneDrive or let a subscription lapse:

Compare counts and sizes: CloudsLinker's Task monitor shows how many files were copied; with rclone, run rclone check as shown in Method Three. For the browser method, compare folder sizes on both sides.
Open a sample: open a few large files (videos, big spreadsheets, PDFs) in Google Drive to make sure they play and open.
Run a final catch-up: if OneDrive was still in use during the move, re-run the copy once more. With CloudsLinker's default conflict rule and rclone, unchanged files are skipped.
Re-share: recreate the sharing links and folder permissions people rely on, now pointing at Google Drive.
Only then clean up OneDrive: delete files there, or switch a CloudsLinker re-run to Move, once you are sure the Google Drive copy is complete.

OneDrive to Google Drive: Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. A cloud-to-cloud tool reads from OneDrive and writes straight to Google Drive. CloudsLinker does this on its own servers from a browser, so your computer can be switched off; rclone does it from the command line, but the data still flows through the machine running rclone. Neither OneDrive nor a personal Google account has a built-in button that sends files to the other.

Not automatically. They arrive as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files, which Google Drive can open and edit without converting. To convert one, open it and choose File > Save as Google Docs (or Sheets or Slides). Browser uploads can be converted automatically by turning on Convert uploads in Google Drive settings, and rclone can convert during the copy with --drive-import-formats.

Yes. CloudsLinker lists OneDrive and OneDrive for Business as separate connectors, so pick the one that matches the Microsoft account you sign in with. Some organizations require an admin to approve third-party apps before you can connect. For a whole company moving to Google Workspace, a Workspace super admin can use Google's own OneDrive import instead.

Google Drive accepts up to 750 GB of uploads and copies per user in a 24-hour period, whichever tool you use. Single files are never the problem on this route because OneDrive caps files at 250 GB. If your OneDrive holds more than 750 GB, move it in folder batches over several days.

Not with file-copy methods. The browser, the desktop apps, rclone, AList or OpenList and CloudsLinker copy the files themselves, so you need to share them again in Google Drive. Google Workspace's admin import for OneDrive is the exception: it copies files, folders and permissions between company accounts.

They do not come across as usable files. OneDrive stores notebooks in a special format: the OneDrive website cannot download them, and copy tools such as rclone and CloudsLinker skip them. Export your notebooks from the OneNote app before you start.

Yes, one way. In CloudsLinker you can repeat a transfer on a Weekly or Monthly schedule on paid plans, and the default conflict rule only sends files that are new or have a different size or date, so later runs pick up what changed. Deleting a file in OneDrive does not delete it from Google Drive. CloudsLinker's separate Sync page does mirror deletions, so use it only if you want Google Drive to match OneDrive exactly.

The browser method, the desktop apps and rclone are free; your own internet connection does the work. CloudsLinker's free plan includes 10 GB of transfer per month, with paid plans for larger moves. Google's OneDrive import is included at no extra cost for Google Workspace admins. Check that your Google storage plan has room for everything first: the free 15 GB is shared with Gmail and Google Photos.

Conclusion

Moving OneDrive to Google Drive is mostly a question of volume. Under a few gigabytes, the browser is enough. For a full account, a cloud-to-cloud copy with CloudsLinker or rclone avoids the 10 GB zip limit, and CloudsLinker keeps your own computer out of the loop entirely; for a company tenant, Google's built-in OneDrive import also carries permissions across. Plan big moves around the 750 GB-per-day upload cap, export OneNote notebooks separately, keep the copy running in Copy mode until you have checked the result, and recreate sharing in Google Drive once the files have landed.

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