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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.
Carter_MSFT
Microsoft
MicrosoftThanks 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