Time Machine backup of One Drive and One Note

Louisalou wrote:

I use Time Machine to back up my local drive (on my Macbook) and I want to ensure that the One Drive folders and One Note notes are also being saved to the Time Machine backup.

How can I ensure this?

If those folders and files are physically on your Mac, by default they will be backed up by Time Machine unless you instruct Time Machine in its Settings to skip them.

Must my One Drive folders and One Note notes be synced and sitting in my local drive on my Macbook?

They need to be physically in your local drive on the Mac to be backed up by Time Machine.

How can I see whether these folders and notes are being saved to Time Machine?

You can open one of your Time Machine backups using the Finder and inspect to see that those files were indeed backed up.

I want to be able to retrieve all of my folders and notes in case I lose my laptop or it dies, etc.

If you lose your laptop or it dies, you can log in to your One Drive account on a new or different computer and then its local disk will automatically download all those same files/folders identically to how it did on the previous Mac.

Here is the scenario where your One Drive files are NOT backed up by Time Machine: you keep those files physically only in the cloud, and have no physical copy on your Mac. Time Machine will not go and download those cloud-only files down to your Mac and then back them up. So in that situation, while the files are indeed safe in the cloud, they are not backed up locally to your local backup.

Louisalou wrote:

I use Time Machine to back up my local drive (on my Macbook) and I want to ensure that the One Drive folders and One Note notes are also being saved to the Time Machine backup.

How can I ensure this?

Must my One Drive folders and One Note notes be synced and sitting in my local drive on my Macbook?

How can I see whether these folders and notes are being saved to Time Machine?

I want to be able to retrieve all of my folders and notes in case I lose my laptop or it dies, etc.

you are trying to backup the "third-party sync software" folders to TM...? I would not.

Seems like you are asking for problems.

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.

OneDrive is known to cause sync issue on the mac— I would not complicate the issue.

3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 off site incase of natural disaster or un-natural disaster.

Each of the above should be done to a Dedicated Single Purposed External Drive 

https://bombich.com

The link below from Microsoft explains what and how their One Drive works when used on macOS

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sync-files-with-onedrive-on-macos-d11b9f29-00bb-4172-be39-997da46f913f#:~:text=When%20you%20install%20the%20Microsoft,kept%20in%20sync%20with%20OneDrive.

Excerpt " When you install the Microsoft OneDrive sync app for Mac, a copy of your OneDrive is downloaded to your Mac and put in the OneDrive folder. This folder is kept in sync with OneDrive. If you add, change, or delete a file or folder on the OneDrive website, the file or folder is added, changed, or deleted in your OneDrive folder and vice versa.

To upload files to OneDrive automatically, just copy or move the files to your OneDrive folder using the Finder, or save them in your OneDrive folder from an app. Files you upload this way can be up to 250GB in size if you're signed in to a Microsoft account, or 15GB if you're signed in to a work or school account. If you installed the OneDrive app on other computers, the files will automatically be added to the OneDrive folders on them, too.

You can also use the Finder to rename and delete files, create new folders, and move files around in your OneDrive folder. The changes will automatically be made in OneDrive and your other computers that have the sync app installed."

Based upon the above, it would appear that files placed on One Drive are Copies of files that are located On your Computer

So, files On your Computer , in theory would be included in your Time Machine Backup or some other method of doing a backup

To Test this using the information from Apple on How to Restore Files using Time Machine Backup Utility

 Restore the Deleted Files