Forum Discussion
Can we 'turn off' new OneDrive shortcut naming convention due to causing long filename backup fail
Microsoft has changed the default OneDrive folder naming convention to now include 'SITE NAME' - 'FOLDER NAME'. In our case, we create a dedicated SharePoint 'Project' (Site) and a few 'Document Libraries' within the Site for each project. The 'Document Libraries' include different permissions for external sharing and differing user purpose. The recent change now means that all linked OneDrive folders include extremely long names similar to the following:
We also back up Sharepoint and also individual user computers on an external Windows server. However, the Windows system only permits a maximum total file path name of 256 characters. In the example above the addition of the duplicate '- 10092 Traralgon HV Maintenance' has added 32 un-needed characters to all file paths on the Windows machine and we are seeing multiple backup failures of individual files as a result.
This appears as a very short-sighted 'forced' change by Microsoft OneDrive which is in direct conflict with Microsoft Windows machines??
The short question is whether there is any way to turn off the automated addition. We can manually remove the extra text and OneDrive - SharePoint syncing continues to work perfectly. However, this manual change must be made on each machine for each project which is not a viable solution.
Similar folder naming was addressed previously but in reverse:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5220424/why-does-add-shortcut-to-onedrive-library-change-t
I'm surprised that there appears to be no other persons raising this as a concern which leads me to think that perhaps we are doing something unique or others simply haven't noticed the issue??
We have attempted to 'fix' the issue from within our Sharepoint 'flow' script (used to set up each project SITE), but without success. This folder naming appears driven by OneDrive, not SharePoint.
Thanks in advance.
1 Reply
OneDrive does not allow you to customise the default naming format for shortcuts. The system applies a predefined structure that usually includes the folder name along with its source, such as a SharePoint site or the owner’s name. You can rename shortcuts manually after they are created, but there is no option to set an automatic default format.
Possibly an automation / script of some sort to manually change it will be the best of your bad options
Sorry that I am kind of just telling you what you already seem to have found.
