Forum Discussion
MicrosoftAnnouncement: OneDrive Sync Updates
All of us here on the OneDrive Team have been hard at work delivering many of the OneDrive sync client updates we communicated at Ignite to further improve the user experience and administration of syncing files from Office 365. With the holidays rapidly approaching we wanted to give you an update on those enhancements.
The best part is the latest OneDrive sync client will automatically update with these new capabilities. If you aren’t running the latest OneDrive sync client, or aren’t sure, you can learn more here.
Activity center
The activity center is now available in the latest OneDrive sync client on Mac and PC giving you visibility to the most recent sync activity and status. Simply click on the OneDrive icon in your system tray (PC) or Finder (Mac) to see your file sync
Conditional access
You can now restrict OneDrive sync to only domain joined or workplace joined devices. You can even make access contingent on PC health if you like. All of this can be managed through the new OneDrive admin center preview and by configuring Azure Active Directory policies. Learn more here.
Syncing SharePoint sites
Making sure you have the information that is critical to you on every device no matter where you are is key to our customers. The ability to sync SharePoint sites directly to OneDrive is one of these features that makes doing this easier and simpler for end users. We’ve had great feedback on the public preview of syncing SharePoint Online document libraries in the latest OneDrive sync client. We remain committed to providing a reliable and performant sync experience for all your Office 365 files and continue to refine the public preview to meet our quality expectations. We’re on target to make this capability generally available in January.
Standalone Mac client
Ever since we added OneDrive for Business support to the latest sync client, we’ve seen an increase of adoption and interest from the Mac community. However, one of the largest blockers for enterprise deployments is that most admins do not want to utilize the Mac App Store to deploy and distribute software due to its limitations.
Today we’re releasing a standalone OneDrive sync client for Mac that you can deploy and manage outside of the Mac App Store. This standalone client also provides sync status visual overlays in Finder, a Finder shortcut for OneDrive, and the ability to set-up OneDrive sync to run at log in. This latest client also has built-in multi-language support. You can get the standalone client for Mac here.
As we get ready for 2017, I want to take a moment to wish all of you a healthy and happy new year from the OneDrive/SharePoint teams here in Redmond. We look forward to continuing to bring all of you more great innovation while finding new ways to make you more productive no matter where and how you choose to work.
Thank you and happy holidays!
Stephen L Rose
Director, OneDrive Product Marketing
The OneDrive team has been hard at work for a loooong time now, and delivered a long list of improvements over the course of this year. With all the major issues tackled now, hopefully you guys will enjoy a more relaxed 2017! :)
- Stephen Rose
No chance. We are just getting warmed up. Lots of cool stuff coming in 2017!
- For SharePoint site sync to really work it would be great if you didn't have to add each SP site to each machine with onedrive you wanted it to sync to. e.g. add a site in one place and get it on all your machines. This is why Dropbox sync works well for folders shared by others, it all just goes in the one place on all your devices. I don't want to have to add my 10 sites i care about to my 5 different devices (laptop, phone, tablet, home pc, desktop).
That would indeed be a very nice option, but not as the default setting. I have a lot of clients that do not have huge drives in their machines (128 SSDs), and they don't want everything to sync to all devices.
Even a checkbox to optionally include each one you have added before would be nice, like it does for other onedrive/dropbox folders. I just dont want to have to manually find each site on each device and set up sync for it .. again.
Actually, I can see plenty of use cases where I wouldn't want that. I might want to sync 10 SharePoint sites + entire OneDrive library on my laptop, but on my mobile device I might want only one or two SP sites.
Sure. It should give you the choice of what to sync on each device then. Having to manually find each one again and set up sync with it seems terrible to me.
Great stuff Stephen, using the preview for SharePoint online and groups and works well. Is there any update on shared folder sync, will this be an automatic experience or behave just like a SharePoint folder sync as it does now with the preview.
Keep up the good work, almost ready to thinking about "dropping" the other file sync tool
I didn't notice a mention of allowing syncing of special characters with OneDrive. That has been on the roadmap for almost an entire year and there has been no news lately. What is the status of that?
Also, hopefully more work will be done to bring together Office Groups, Sharepoint, and OneDrive mobile apps. They are a confusing mess on what you can do in each one, so much so that I will not even introduce our users to them in their current state.
- I'd like to see an update on this as well.
Hi Stephen,
Great to hear that GA is ETA next month, we're awating this for our Win10/EMS/O365 deployment to a target group of 25 000-30 000 users in total.
A key question for us though is - will you be bringing back the context menu in the GA release? Currently there seem to be different versions distributed to different customers out there, some have the context menu and some don't.
The whole point of syncing SPO libraries locally is to be able to work and collaborate on files using File Explorer. Without the context menu users cannot right-click the file and copy link to easily paste and share the URL wherever/however they like. Instead they have to struggle to find out what the URL is in order to copy and share it.
Therefore the lack of the context menu is really a usability issue for us.
Thanks,
Richard
Yes this. Stephen Rose the context menu "Get a Link" is absolutely must and is sorely missed. In absence of this, users have to go online and go through a convoluted process of getting a link via web interface!
Abhimanyu Singh wrote:Yes this. Stephen Rose the context menu "Get a Link" is absolutely must and is sorely missed. In absence of this, users have to go online and go through a convoluted process of getting a link via web interface!
Stephen Rose Any update on the right-click context-menu "Get a Link"? I am yet to hear anything on this. This functionality is most essential for our users.
My users keep complaining of the convoluted process of getting a direct link to any file where they have to open their OneDrive or SharePoint library in browser and use the "Get Link" there.
The new "Share" option in the context menu shnown in the Virtual Summit yesterday, doesn't cut it for getting those links quickly enough. The new "Share" option will open up the dialog for sharing options in a window with embedded web interface which will be slow and frustating. We want that old "Get a Link" option back which was lightening fast and gave the direct link (relevant people) straight away without going through the hoops.
Stephen, Do you have an estimation on when to expect this update?
- Stephen Rose
The previews are all available today. We will go GA very soon. :)
And f$#! Linux users right? I have to switch to Windows just to sync my business client. More Linux users should cancel their 365 subscriptions, since MS doesn't give a **bleep** about us anyway, even with Satya and all of his lately Linux-love.
- Stephen Rose
Thanks for your passionate message Adan.
It's a pretty low marketshare running Linux desktop but it is growing. Perhaps it is time to look at Linux especially since none of our competitors support it. Also, now that we have a Bash running native in Windows 10 (link on how to set it up here ) it may be time to revisit.
Thanks for the feedback.
- Anatol NorocIf I'd move to Linux I'd be prepared to write some utilities for myself. In OneDrive you can use https://dev.onedrive.com.
Now, on a realistic note - the number of users on that platform is quite low and the focus is rather on the other ones.
Great improvements are in the Sync client this year and promising. Congrats team for your hardwork.
Hi Stephen Rose, I like Sharepoint sync for files onboarding, but I'd like to generally disable Sharepoint Sync but still allow OneDrive for Business Sync. Will this be possible?
The main reason is fear of Ransomware. Or are there any other suggestions on how to tackle this?
- Stephen Rose
If you customer is running Windows 10 Anniversary Edition they have Windows ATP and Microsoft Edge which would eliminate this issue. What your asking can be done but creates a subpar experience for the customer.
Happy to jump on a call to discuss.
Ivan54 wrote:Hi Stephen Rose, I like Sharepoint sync for files onboarding, but I'd like to generally disable Sharepoint Sync but still allow OneDrive for Business Sync. Will this be possible?
The main reason is fear of Ransomware. Or are there any other suggestions on how to tackle this?
Hi, thanks for the response. Would you care to fruther elaborate on both points?
I know Windows Defender ATP is supposed to further help with post breach attacks, and Edge is getting some (not sure which is relevant here) security hardening. But are they combined really able to prevent 100% of new emerging ransomware attacks?
Also, how is preventing SharePoint sync a subpar UX? If anything I'd argue that syncing the files offline is getting my users a subpar Sharepoint experience since they are missing out on additional document library features and views?
- Anatol NorocUntil something like this will appear in OneDrive Admin Center, maybe something like this can be used: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/How-to-enabledisable-sync-8ad53996
Has Microsoft worked with any of the 3rd party vendors like Centrify or such to assist on determining if a Mac is "domain" joined or not with the AD environment?
