Blog Post

Microsoft OneDrive Blog
2 MIN READ

Add to OneDrive is generally available

Ankita Kirti's avatar
Ankita Kirti
Bronze Contributor
Dec 02, 2020

Files are the building blocks of our work— helping us collaborate with others to construct the end results. Research documents, data spreadsheets, sales reports, presentations, product videos and other content-rich files are the components that hold up our final deliverable.

 

“Where can I find that file?” It’s a question we’ve all asked our colleagues, our teams, and, most often, ourselves countless times but not anymore. Today, we are happy to announce our previously disclosed feature Add to OneDrive is now generally available. Now, instead of figuring out the who sent us that file or remembering the original location of the shared content, we can swiftly get back to the files we need, directly within our OneDrive.

 

Add to OneDrive makes it easy to add a shortcut to the shared folders directly to our OneDrive. Shared folders include content that others have shared with us through their OneDrive, which surfaces in the “Shared with me“ view or content that is a part of a shared library in Microsoft Teams or SharePoint.

 

Add to OneDrive makes it easy to add a shortcut to the shared folders directly to our OneDrive

 

 

With Add to OneDrive, not only can we bring all our shared content into one place, but we can also work with the shared content with the same power and flexibility as if they are files we own. This means we can easily sync and access these folders from anywhere on any device; securely share and co-author files in the added folder; and stay up to date with @mentions, activity, and notifications. Added folders respect all existing policies, compliance, and security settings, too.

 

Added folders can be synced to your device for anytime anywhere access.

 

Since we've started rolling out Add to OneDrive to production, we have been humbled by the overwhelming response to the feature in terms of feedback and usage. OneDrive is a foundational product in our effort to power a seamless, connected files experience in Microsoft 365 and features like Add to OneDrive help us in achieving not only easy access to our important content but also efficient organization of files that matter the most to us.

 

Note: For the next few months, the admins will be able to disable Add to OneDrive for their organizations. This temporary choice is available to help admins drive any required change management with ease. We will inform you before removing this option to opt-out of the feature. 

 
If you choose to opt-out, use the Set-SPOTenant command via Admin PowerShell. The command is Set-SPOTenant -DisableAddShortcutsToOneDrive $true
When the feature is disabled, the command to add folders will be removed; any folders that have already been added will remain on the user’s computer

 

To learn more about the feature do visit the support article here.

 

Thanks for your time reading about OneDrive,

Ankita Kirti – OneDrive | Microsoft

Updated Dec 07, 2020
Version 2.0

40 Comments

  • ChrisWebbTech but it works only with internal users :sad:, for external you still have to use "Shared with me" with all the issues, you have described .I have several devices, I do not sync all stuff on all machines. 

  • See I’m the opposite. I want sync disabled and this to be the only option. Add to onedrive works so much better for two big reasons.

     

    1. it saves regardless of where you access onedrive and on all sync clients. 
    2. it cleans up way better than sync as it will only leave behind files that haven’t synced or had issues. Everything else is removed from the machine when removing shortcuts unlike sync which leaves behind all synced files in a non synced folder or basically a local copy (not on demand files however). This is huge.  

  • TimLB's avatar
    TimLB
    Iron Contributor

    Ankita Kirti - Could you post the directions for disabling "Add to OneDrive"? I'm not finding the documentation in any of the articles linked in this blog post. I also checked the documentation for Set-SPOTenant PowerShell cmdlet and didn't find any new parameters that appear to control this setting.

     

    Thanks

  • What's the minimum version of the OneDrive sync client that support this.as I am seeing older versions don't sync the linked folders. Newer versions do... 

    I looked for this info and could not find under which version this was added. 

     

     

     

  • Arun James's avatar
    Arun James
    Brass Contributor

    Useful feature, is there a decision point to show this or not?

    How can admin disable this?

  • wroot's avatar
    wroot
    Silver Contributor

    Yeah, it takes too much space. Maybe it could be just "Add to OneDrive". Although that would sound like Copy. Moving it to overflow will make it less discoverable. I guess the only option here is to allow users to customize the order of buttons on that menu.

  • wroot I see it in SharePoint doc libraries as well. Here's what I see on my main monitor. Plenty of more useful features are hidden in the overflow menu.

     

    Delete

    Rename

    Move

    Copy

  • wroot's avatar
    wroot
    Silver Contributor

    Isn't it only showing when clicking on folders/files in Shared with me view? Or do you often need to Move/Copy files in that view (if it is even possible)?

  • This is a good feature, but it's kind of a bummer how much space it takes up in that menubar - and the (to me) more important file feature that get shoved off to the right or into the more menu (like Move/Copy).