“Add to OneDrive” 🎙 – The Intrazone podcast

Mark-Kashman gacarini (Can't find Katy to @ her here. )

This episode was super helpful and brought clarity to the direction sync is headed. I'm disappointed to learn that the 'Sync' button is on its way out, in deference to 'Add to OneDrive,' though your explanation as to why makes a lot of sense. Allow me to present why I'm disappointed and hopefully this can help inform your continued development of 'Add to OneDrive.'

The reason so many of our users tend to prefer using the Sync button is the built-in separation in File Explorer, denoted by the office building icon, for files they've synced from Teams (see first image, below). This is a useful separation as we think about which files are exclusively our own and which are shared files to which we have access. Instead of this separation into a different folder strucure, 'Add to OneDrive' surfaces these synced folders in OneDrive web by mixing shared (Teams) files under "My files" (though with a slightly altered folder icon), and this doesn't provide the full separation that helps users stay organized. In fact, every time one clicks 'Add to OneDrive,' they've just created yet another folder in the root "My files," likely just named "General," which they now have to move to a subfolder, or rename, or both.

Perhaps there could be an option for users to choose whether or not to they wish to lump all of these together or not, both in File Explorer and OneDrive web. This would make it an easier change to swallow. Maybe a change in terminology to something like "My OneDrive Files" and an additional option for "Files I've Synced." Or, even better, perhaps an easier design change would be a new blue-colored folder at the top of "My files" in OneDrive web and File Explorer called "Added to OneDrive," where these synced folders would be created, by default. (See my mock-ups, below). Similar to how all teams meetings recordings automatically go to an auto-created new folder called 'Recordings.'

Thanks for listening.