How to Clone Files from Personal OneDrive to a SharePoint Site Using Rclone (Without Downloading Anything Locally)

Complete Guide: Migrating from OneDrive to SharePoint with Rclone Without Using Your Computer

More and more companies and professionals are migrating their personal or shared data to corporate Microsoft 365 environments.
The problem arises when a personal OneDrive has accumulated hundreds of gigabytes and there is no practical way to move them to the company's SharePoint without downloading them first.

That's where Rclone comes in, a cross-platform command-line tool that allows you to transfer data directly between clouds — without consuming local space, without logging in through a browser, and without relying on slow synchronizations.

1. What is Rclone and Why Use It?

Rclone is a powerful "Swiss Army knife" for the cloud. It allows you to connect services like OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, etc., and move or sync data directly between them.

Key advantages:

• It doesn't download or temporarily save files.

• It supports encryption, integrity checks, and speed limits.

• It's free and stable (used by thousands of sysadmins).

• It works the same on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

2. Preparing Access to OneDrive and SharePoint

Before you start, you need to configure two remotes in Rclone:
one for your personal OneDrive and another for the corporate SharePoint.

Open a terminal and run:

An interactive menu will appear.

Step 1: Create the personal OneDrive remote

Select:

Rclone will open a browser window for you to log in with your personal account (e.g., user@hotmail.com).
When finished, save the configuration.

Step 2: Create the SharePoint remote

Repeat:

When Rclone asks for the SharePoint type, select the option:

The browser will open: log in with your corporate Microsoft 365 account and authorize it.

Once completed, you will have two destinations configured:

• personal: → your personal OneDrive

• company: → your organization's SharePoint

You can list their folders like this:

3. Identifying the Site Path in SharePoint

In the site URL (for example):

the path after /sites/ (in this case "Documents") will be the base of the destination.

In Rclone, you will set it up like this:

4. Cloning Directly Without Downloading

Now for the good part: moving everything without using local space.

Basic copy example:

What each parameter does:

• copy: copies files without deleting them from the source.

• --create-empty-src-dirs: preserves the folder structure.

• --progress: shows transferred files in real-time.

• --transfers 4: number of simultaneous file transfers.

• --drive-chunk-size: improves speed for large files.

If you prefer to sync (exactly mirror the source), use:

(Note: "sync" deletes anything in the destination that doesn't exist in the source, ideal only for final migrations).

5. Limiting Speed or Avoiding Throttling

Microsoft applies temporary limits if it detects massive transfers.
You can reduce the load with:

This limits the traffic and prevents the HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) error.

6. Checking the Results

When it finishes, you can compare the total size of both locations:

And if you want to validate the integrity:

7. Resuming Interrupted Transfers

Rclone saves partial information about uploads.
If the connection is lost or Microsoft pauses access, simply repeat the same command:
it will only retry the incomplete files.

8. Automating or Scheduling

For large migrations (over 500 GB), it's a good idea to schedule the task to run nightly using cron (Linux) or Task Scheduler (Windows).

Example in Linux:

and add:

9. Bonus: Encrypting Sensitive Data

If you are moving confidential information (contracts, invoices, etc.), you can encrypt on the fly:

and create a new remote of type crypt linked to the destination SharePoint.

Example:

This way, the files will be automatically encrypted upon arrival.

Conclusion

With rclone, migrating data between OneDrive and SharePoint without downloading it is simple, fast, and completely controlled.
For administrators or IT technicians managing Microsoft 365 infrastructures, it has become an indispensable tool: transparent, repeatable, and independent of slow sync clients or limited interfaces.

If you work in mixed environments (personal OneDrive, corporate, or Google Workspace), Rclone gives you a common language to move data between clouds frictionlessly.