Hello there! 2.24.22 UPDATE: We've been listening to your feedback, and we've made some design changes. We're releasing a new version that addresses the most common themes and makes it easier to achieve the previous experience. Please read the latest blog post for more details. Two weeks ago, we posted an update about Files On-Demand for macOS and have received overwhelming feedback from the community. We have spent a lot of time reading your comments and concerns to understand how we can improve your experience on macOS. To address some of the common issues and doubts we have updated the blog with a FAQ. If you still have more queries feel free to reach out to the team directly on this thread. Thank you for your constant support and partnership! Team OneDrive Jack_Nichols gacarini Carter_MSFT

Ankita Kirti Thank you for the openness on this article https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/inside-the-new-files-on-demand-experience-on-macos/bc-p/3066588The purpose of having OneDrive is to sync across devices and backup. Since the beginning I chose to have most of my files on my Mac, for several reasons :- spotlight index (just amazing)- time machine backup- other third party backup- of course direct access even offline (working on the go) From what I read (see below) files will not be indexed by Spotlight. This is a MAJOR issue, that will cause me to stop using OneDrive and use alternate services. Even if I have elected to have a local copy of the files, which does not make any sense.Will this work with local file indexing (e.g. Apple's Spotlight)?Yes. Spotlight indexes everything that is in your sync root, but note that Spotlight will not fetch (or hydrate) files that are dataless. If you are looking for something in Spotlight that could only be read from the full file (such as image EXIF data), only fully hydrated files will be indexed.Spotlight will not index our cache folder." Can you please look into that ? Also the roll-out of the new OneDrive has been a real pain for us. I appreciate the openness but your support staff is clueless, and before doing those changes that go against our wishes, careful consideration and communication would have been appreciated.

Ankita Kirti Jack_Nichols gacarini Carter_MSFT Where are you? Why have you all gone silent?

Ankita Kirti Okay, so since we have to manually download everything in our bright new shiny non-automated world:If I tell onedrive to make a folder always available locally, does that also recurse through the contents of that folder and download 100% of the contents or do we have to do so individually for every single item in the onedrive folder?In my testing, the setpin option listed here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/files-on-demand-mac worked so badly as to be useless. Specifically- the /setpin option can't be used while onedrive is running, which means to use /setpin, you have to quit OneDrive, then watch it restart and quit every time you use /setpin. This is a *very* bad implementation of a command line feature. Literally makes it effectively useless as a way to speed up pinning things locally faster than clickclickclickclick in the finder.Will the FileOnDemand preferences key documented here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/deploy-and-configure-on-macos#filesondemandenabled be around for a while or is that going to get stealth deleted too? The implementation of this decision is to put it mildly, awful. I can't think of a worse way to go about this, and for no real reason other than "The OneDrive Team is very enamored of FoD, so you will be too" I'm very sure no one on the OneDrive team has to deal with this in a situation with heavily metered, slow, capped internet access, and that limitation in your design decisions shows.

Hi Michael,> From what I read (see below) files will not be indexed by Spotlight. This is > a MAJOR issue, that will cause me to stop using OneDrive and use alternate services. Spotlight will index the content in your sync root (the path in ~/Library/CloudStorage). That will include any file metadata there, along with file content for files available in this path. As far as getting the file content into the sync root, we're looking at ways to make this experience better, but in the near-term, if you want to force files to be available here, you can click the little "down cloud" icon to initiate a download. This works for folders too. For files that we already have in our cache path, this fetch should happen more or less instantly. Otherwise, we'll download the file from the cloud.I've also shared the gist of your feedback with the rest of our team so we can think about how to better support this scenario.Jack

Jack - I'm in the camp of having the Auto Save issues and I have the App Store version. Rather than uninstall / reset and install the standalone version, I'm choosing to wait for the hot fix.1) How will I know that I have the updated version? I'm currently on Version 22.002.0103.0004. Is the hot fix a new version number? Do I need to restart my Mac in order for it to update?2) Will this hot fix address the issue I have noted before - when saving a document and choosing "Online Folders" in the save as dialog... right now only my current business OneDrive account is listed as a possible location. By current - I mean that is the account that I'm signed into in my Office apps and on Office.com. But I have two other OneDrive accounts currently active and syncing - a second business account and a personal account - that I do not apparently have access to when using this Save As approach. That same limitation applies when I try to turn on AutoSave from a document - which I opened up from finder in one of my 3 OneDrive folders - the pop up dialog asks me to upload or copy the file to OneDrive but only gives me 1 out of 3 OneDrive locations as a target.Hopefully that description makes sense.

Files On-Demand for macOS QA | Microsoft Community Hub

152 Replies

FonsecaSergio1982
Copper Contributor
Mar 09, 2022
Ankita Kirti still got no reply on my error trying to upgrade Onedrive experience when my data is on external disk. Can you help here?

Found errors on Console Log
Sandbox: OneDrive(39175) deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/APPLE2T
Sandbox: OneDrive(39175) deny(1) file-read-data /Users/sergiofonseca/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV2
Sandbox: OneDrive(39157) deny(1) file-write-create /Volumes/APPLE2T/.ODContainer-OneDrive
nathanjbowen
Copper Contributor
Mar 08, 2022
After the most recent update, my onedrive files that I store on my external hard drive were no longer accessible, OneDrive app wouldn't login correctly, etc. However, resetting OneDrive fixed all of the issues. Keeping this handy for further issues with upgrades.
To reset OneDrive:
Open Finder and navigate to the Applications folder.
Right-click on the OneDrive app and select Show Package Contents.
Go to Contents > Resources.
Double-click to run ResetOneDriveAppStandalone.command.
Depending on your OneDrive version, the command might be ResetOneDriveApp.command.
Launch OneDrive and set it up again.
JeremyGuthrie
Copper Contributor
Mar 08, 2022
SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!? The latest onedrive client just undid ALL OF MY SYNCS AGAIN!?!?!!? This is BEYOND FRUSTRATING. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I cannot convey how utterly frustrating this is as it looks like I lost work in the process.

For crying out loud, give us CLI to configure this client since it is clear you have no interest in actually managing configurations across versions of the client. At least we could manage the configuration as infrastructure as code.
Mirko Gherardi
Copper Contributor
Mar 04, 2022
Ankita Kirti
Hi I installed the program and I find it very useful and nice, but I have a problem I also synchronized with iCloud and to backup to onedrive it tells me that I have to disable that, otherwise I can't do it.

Would it be possible to lift this limitation?

Thanks, and BR
Mirko
JeremyGuthrie
Copper Contributor
Feb 28, 2022
Just to re-affirm, the CPU issues are NOT fixed. Just a brief look and I can still see OneDrive spasm when I use office apps.
Carter_MSFT
Microsoft
Feb 24, 2022
I wanted to update this thread with a new blog post that talks to some of the top issues we have been hearing about the Files On-Demand update. The blog post outlines a scenario that we are enabling for you to mark your OneDrive folder to always keep it on you device. This scenario basically mimics the old experience of turning off Files On-Demand, it will make all your content as local first, even newly synced content will be locally available. It has other good changes as well but we are continuing to listen and looking to improve the experience going forward.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/updates-to-files-on-demand-on-macos/ba-p/3207503
- bhanquier
  Copper Contributor
  Feb 26, 2022
  I didn't have to go through the setup phase this time, but for the next dreaded time it's ever needed, I do hope you've reintroduced the step that allows the user to choose which folders one wishes to sync… That was among the top 3 most ill-conceived choices made by your team in recent years.
- david68
  Brass Contributor
  Feb 24, 2022
  Carter_MSFT Thanks appreciate the update however more timely updates would be appreciated by all, there have been hundreds on this blog pulling their hair out with this update that frankly has been badly misrepresented, and then worse, poorly communicated, we are (usually) your strongest advocates please treat us with respect
JeremyGuthrie
Copper Contributor
Feb 24, 2022
A few bits of feedback:
- Updates on the blog are helpful knowing it is there.
- That said, no one is ever checking all of the blogs for updates. For what it is worth, reaching users is hard hence why breaking user experience really should be a last resort. Every time one of the plethora of programs I have upgrades, I am not checking blogs.

Example: Moving onedrive storage to under ~/Library seems really hard to justify what the pizaz and OMG look what we get functionality is from such a move. Absolute file paths are always going to be a problem and kinda once you set it, sorry you're stuck with it. Powershell has that all over the place. It isn't a new lesson and moving it wasn't fresh or new. We already had shortcuts on the left bar.

I would also argue that unless you can really say why moving to ~/Library just had to happen, it's another miss because I don't feel like as a user, I should have to care. Is this an Apple Library requirement? Great, still put in a workaround or fix to preserve what I had. You just made a system specific issue, a problem where my outcome is a need to reliably store / manage files and content I have lost faith in. I feel like this change seriously damaged your message.

I am not trying to sound like I am harping but I will also say that 'reinventing' things means also understanding where the technical debt can bite you. As users we feel bitten pretty bad.
dan54
Copper Contributor
Feb 24, 2022
Hello Jack_Nichols gacarini Carter_MSFT

As you should be aware by now from the comments of many users on this thread and the other threads, the new OneDrive is using enormous amounts of CPU and Memory - it is using GB's of Memory while not syncing or doing anything, and then it uses tens of GB's of Memory during and just after syncing (even for tiny files only KB's in size). This also makes the Mac so hot it burns your fingers.

Is the new update going to fix the crazy CPU and Memory consumption? This is the most concerning thing for me out of all the issues.
CondEnt
Copper Contributor
Feb 24, 2022
Outstanding problems for me, even with latest version:
- lost all tags
- have an orphaned 60GB cache folder from one of the other installations (which I have no removed)
- when setting "keep on device" for all, redownloaded all even though most should have been on disk
- deleting file doesn't go to mac recyle bin (unique to onedrive: icloud, google drive, dropbox all put deleted file in OS recycle bin)
- unclear how it interacts with time machine to have copy of files
- lost all my sharepoint syncs (over 20) so have to manually go back to find each folder and resync.
- the way teams channels sync has changed completely, all old channels syncs are broken, new ones go in a different place and don't download the files.

Actually apart from the horrendous migration progress I suspect it will probably work OK in a couple of versions, but breaking Finder file delete by not having files go to recycle bin is a deal breaker for me.
Oliver105
Iron Contributor
Feb 24, 2022
QUOTE: "Thank you for your constant support and partnership!"

What ????

There is NO "constant support and partnership" at all!. If you would ever get rid of your arrogance and read all the posts here you might realize that your customers change to other cloud services and are pissed. There is NO support for that crap you've built.

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Files On-Demand for macOS QA