Event banner
Event details
We're having a lot of issues with using the "Sync" feature with SharePoint/Teams files. Issues with windows file path length limits, issues with long sync times with high file count archives, users trying to make massive archives available offline and filling their hard drives, etc. Are there best practices? Is this feature not recommended? We want to move from legacy file shares to M365 but this has been challenging.
- We also produced an episode of The Intrazone with the OneDrive product team to address "Sync vs Add to OneDrive": https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sharepoint-blog/add-to-onedrive-the-intrazone-podcast/ba-p/3680673 - it's a great listen, and the blog has good links, too.
- Thank you! Checking this out now.
- Carter_MSFT
Microsoft
Thanks for sharing your issues. Regarding your File Paths limits, we apologize for this since it is a service constraint, we do have a 400 character limit for the file path (see more here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restrictions-and-limitations-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa#filenamepathlengths) Regarding bring massive archives offline, I'm curious why bringing the entire library offline is desired. The power of Files on Demand is that a user can access a whole library on demand, thus not overtaking the network with all the sync operations for the whole library. Best practice is to user Files on Demand and only make your working set of files available locally. The other best practice is to use Folder shortcuts for Shared Libraries such as SharePoint Doc Libs and other shared folders.Users *should not* sync all files but that's not easily understood. We recommend that but a few months later, users forget and think "oh, I'll make this available offline for my flight" and then crush their PC.
It would be nice if we could limit the max size of sync'd files through a policy, or if the user got a warning when syncing more than x files or y size.
- Carter_MSFTAs an admin you can run a script that cleans up the hydration status of files. It might be good to explore running a monthly script if you see this as a reoccurring issue: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/files-on-demand-windows
Try using the button at the top of a sharepoint document library/folder, this just adds a shortcut to your OneDrive where you can access the data live as long as you have Internet access.
- This seems to cause worse issues. With this, anytime you get a sync error, the OneDrive folder stops syncing until you resolve. At least with the "Sync" feature, the error is compartmentalized to that one SharePoint list.
- Carter_MSFTThanks Micheal for replying here. Our best practice is to use Folder shortcuts. Errors with the folder shortcuts should not stop sync all up, it should only be folder specific, so it is not by design that sync will completely stop working if there is an issue with that folder.
- Michael - my understanding from the conference I went to last month, that creating a shortcut to OneDrive will eventually take the place of the sync tool
- Carter_MSFTIt will not take the place of the sync tool. The OneDrive Sync client supports Folder shortcuts and will sync those shortcuts down to the user's File Explorer. What it is replacing is the OneDrive Sync command, which syncs the whole team site, instead of just the folder desired to work on.
- Thank you Carter, that makes more sense.
