Forum Discussion
Files On-Demand for macOS QA
Having used OneDrive for years, I do have to say I'm just sad and disappointed with the current state of things for OneDrive on the Mac after spending the past two weeks trying to figure out how to rework all my workflows that were heavily relying on OneDrive, as well as trying to explain to several less tech-savvy friends what was happening to OneDrive on their Macs, where their files are and what to do from now on.
Apple-mandated changes aside — as other cloud services will have to deal with them as well — this rollout was disastrously poorly communicated, and some changes which seem to be pure Microsoft decisions (like files on demand not being optional anymore) break so many workflows that it is simply incredible this was not properly and thoroughly tested before rollout. This feels like it has not been tested at all in real-life professional scenarios.
These decisions have led to a mess with a number of other bits of software, including e.g. Cryptomator (which needs encrypted files to reside locally), DEVONthink (which so far works fine with indexed files being on OneDrive, but leads to an inherently risky and potentially dangerous setup if one can not guarantee that they will always be available offline), and most of all any backup software (as one is no longer guaranteed local backups include all files as they may not have been available locally when backup ran — I fail to see how corporate customers will be happy with that state of things).
I don't feel like leaving OneDrive for Google Drive, Dropbox or iCloud, but then again, the current setup is all but reassuring when it comes to file availability and file integrity. It's a mess, who knows what's online, offline, or somewhere in-between, and I've found several corrupted images on the local drive that were otherwise fine in the cloud, leading me to believe there is something seriously wrong with the way OneDrive is syncing files now and making them available to macOS.
I have two M365 subscriptions, a personal and a business one, mostly for the fact that OneDrive was so crucial to my workflows and was such a great deal as part of the 365 subscription.
I agree 100%, and it's nice to see that you named DEVONthink there. I also use this program with indexed files that are in my OneDrive folder, and I am very nervous about something going wrong. Do you have any information/suggestions about dealing with this issue in DEVONthink?
Also, what exactly is the situation with other Cloud services i.e. Dropbox? I have read that they will also experience problems, esp. with Monterrey 12.3, but do you know if other cloud storage/sync providers have developed solutions to this?
Thanks!
YaYaTurre There has recently been a thread at DEVONtechnologies' forum about the impact that the changed behaviour of OneDrive may have on DEVONthink if you are indexing files. DT's development team does not consider this to be a significant issue currently as they have mechanisms in place to detect broken paths to files but there is no definite official stance on this yet. The thread is on https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/changing-onedrive-behaviour-watch-out-if-indexing/69002.
Most of my databases have imported files (except for one database, which also indexes files in OneDrive and which has been fine so far), so if you are concerned about this, for the time being, you may consider switching to importing instead of indexing files. However, I don't think you would lose any files indexed in DEVONthink, and everything will probably be fine, should anything happen, when you fix/update the path to indexed files. The worst that can (probably) happen is that the files would be unavailable to DT until "downloaded" from OD's cache again.
However, I agree that the new OD behaviour results in an uncomfortable uncertainty if you just want to make sure your files are local and available to all the apps you may be using.
Dropbox is currently in beta with the Apple Silicon optimised client, and https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/macos-12-monterey-support that they will have more information on the impact of macOS 12.3 and File Provider when the next beta rolls out in March.
Google Drive currently works fine, as it does not rely on deprecated Kernel extensions, so it may not be impacted by changes (this remains to be seen). Still, it's 'all or nothing' there as the new client has lost the selective sync ability when it was released last year, so you either use file streaming (= files on demand) or sync everything to the Mac (you cannot select just a couple of folders).
However, there also seem to be issues around Spotlight and indexing; see https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Workspace-Discussions/Mac-Spotlight-not-indexing-Google-Drive-files-in-desktop/m-p/167774/highlight/true#M662. The way I understand this, this impacts primarily files that are streamed and not available locally, similar to current OneDrive issues. I have not been actively using Google Drive for a couple of years now, but I have just tested it in the past week and Spotlight seems to be indexing and finding files that have been mirrored locally i.e. downloaded to the Mac.
