Inside the new Files On-Demand Experience on macOS

[Ankita Kirti]

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.

2.15.22 UPDATE: We're actively reviewing feedback and are aware of the difficulties some users are experiencing with the recent update. We working as quickly as possible to resolve these issues. We will share an update soon.

Additional information can be found in the FAQ updated on 2.1.22.

- Team OneDrive 

In June 2021, we announced several important updates for OneDrive on macOS, including an update to our Files On-Demand experience. This new experience is better integrated with macOS and will also help enable new features like Known Folder Move for macOS.

Today, we are excited to share that we have begun rolling out the new Files On-Demand experience to all our customers using macOS 12.1 or later. We also want to share some additional details about how the new Files On-Demand experience works, what changes you can expect, and when you can expect them.

We know that many of you are supporting organizations with lots of Macs that run OneDrive, and the more information we can provide you, the better you can serve your users.

 

Why we are building a new experience

In 2018, we shipped the first version of Files On-Demand for macOS. Since then, we’ve rolled it out for everyone using macOS 10.14 (Mojave) or later.

We are building a new experience for several reasons. One of the most important is that the new technology stack (based on Apple’s File Provider platform) is much better integrated with the operating system compared to the first version. This means a better user experience, better application compatibility, and better reliability. This technology stack also enables us to offer new features that we couldn’t offer before, like Known Folder Move, along with lots of other little improvements that you probably won’t notice right away!

Because the new experience is more integrated with macOS, it will have long-term support from Apple. The first version of Files On-Demand is built on several pieces of technology that are now deprecated. Moving to the new platform enables us to support this feature for years to come.

 

Supported macOS versions

For users who are not part of our Insiders program, the new Files On-Demand experience requires macOS 12.1 or later. Users on our Insiders program can continue to use macOS 12.0, but we strongly encourage them to update to the latest version.

macOS 12.2 will be the last version that supports the classic Files On-Demand experience. For macOS 12.3 or later, this means:

• Files On-Demand will default to on for all users and cannot be disabled.
• Devices will migrate automatically to the new Files On-Demand as soon as they receive a macOS update. You cannot delay this update without also delaying an update to macOS.
• Both our Standalone and App Store versions of OneDrive will have the same behavior.
• Users running a developer or beta version of macOS will have the same experience as a release version of macOS.

If you are concerned about application compatibility with this change, we strongly suggest that you install macOS 12.3 or later and test your workload. Depending on the results of that test, you may want to delay updating your Macs.

 

File system requirements

The new Files On-Demand experience requires a volume that is formatted with APFS. HFS+ volumes are not supported.

We are ending support for HFS+ after macOS 12.3 or later. A very small minority of customers are syncing OneDrive on HFS+ volumes today. As we roll out the new Files On-Demand, these users will first experience a warning in the OneDrive activity center telling them to upgrade to APFS. Once the new Files On-Demand experience is fully rolled out, OneDrive will not launch until the volume is upgraded to APFS.

You can use Disk Utility (built in to macOS) to determine which volumes are running APFS, and upgrade any HFS+ volumes to APFS.

 

Sync root location

When users set up OneDrive, they must choose a location where files will sync. This is called a sync root. Historically, we’ve allowed users to choose any location on any fixed volume mounted on their Mac.

With the new Files On-Demand experience, the sync root is always located within users’ home directory, in a path such as:

~/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal

As part of the upgrade, the sync root will be moved to this location. This location cannot be moved or changed and is controlled by macOS.

This path is a little cumbersome for users to use, so they can access this directory in two other ways:

• Under Locations on the Finder’s left navigation pane.
• Via a symlink at the original location the user picked when setting up OneDrive. For example, if the user chose to sync OneDrive at ~/OneDrive, then a symlink will be created from here to ~/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal.

 

Cache path

To support the new experience, OneDrive maintains a cache path in a hidden location. This path contains a replica of the file tree that the user is syncing. Most of the files in this location are usually dataless and don’t consume disk space, but occasionally files here can have data, such as if a user pins a file or if a change is being transferred to or from the cloud.

OneDrive tries to maintain as little data here as possible, and instead prefers to keep data in the sync root. As such, file data is not generally kept in both locations unless a file is marked as “Always Available on This Device.” In that case, the file’s data will sometimes be retained in both the sync root and the cache, but the files will be linked using a clone, so they do not occupy any additional space.

 

Using another volume

Sometimes, users choose a path on another volume to set up OneDrive. A typical use case for this happens when a user has a small internal drive on their Mac, but also has a larger external drive attached.

This configuration is still supported in the new Files On-Demand experience if an external drive is selected during the first-run experience. A few things change as a result:

• The sync root remains in ~/Library/CloudStorage, on the user’s home volume. As noted above, this path cannot be moved from this location.
• The cache path is on the volume that was selected during the first-run experience. This is located in a hidden folder that’s a sibling of the location that was chosen.
  • This folder begins with the name “.ODContainer”.
• A symlink is created from the chosen location to ~/Library/CloudStorage.

For example, if the user selects /Volumes/BigDrive/OneDrive for their OneDrive path:

• The sync root will remain in ~/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal
• The cache path will be set up at /Volumes/BigDrive/.ODContainer-OneDrive
• A symlink will link from /Volumes/BigDrive/OneDrive to ~/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal

Because the cache path is located on an external drive in this scenario, any pinned content will be stored there and not on the main drive.

The cache path folder is hidden by default. Users should not modify this folder or its contents.

 

User consent

For OneDrive to complete setup with the new File Provider platform, the user must consent to allow OneDrive to sync. This experience is like the experience of allowing an application access to the Documents folder or the user’s Contacts.

Consent is not required in the following cases:

• If the user previously opted-in to use the Finder Sync extension. This is set by default for the Standalone build, and the vast majority of our App Store users have opted-in as well.
• If the OneDrive app was deployed and managed through an MDM tool. MDM-managed applications are considered to have implied consent by the administrator.

If consent is required, the user will be prompted to provide it during the first run experience when setting up OneDrive for the first time.

The user can withdraw consent from the System Preferences -> Extensions preference pane. If consent is withdrawn, OneDrive will display an error dialog, an error in the Activity Center, and an error icon, until the user provides consent again. OneDrive cannot run without consent.

 

Always Keep on This Device

A standard feature of Files On-Demand on all our platforms is the ability to mark files as “Always Keep on This Device.” Internally, we call this operation “pinning.”

When a file is pinned, it is downloaded to disk and is always available offline, even if there is no network connection. The presence of the check mark icon indicates that a file is in this state. Folders can also be pinned, which means that all files and folders underneath the folder will inherit the state, and new files added to that folder will also inherit the state.

Pinning a file on the new Files On-Demand platform means that its contents will be downloaded into the OneDrive cache. Because is the file is in the OneDrive cache, it can always be provided to the sync root whenever it is needed, even if the machine is offline or the OneDrive app isn’t running. The presence of the gray check mark indicates a file that is in this state.

You may notice that pinned files sometimes have an icon next to them that indicates they aren’t downloaded. This icon just means that the file isn’t in the sync root. If a file has the gray check icon, it is still always available because OneDrive has the file in its cache and can always provide it.

Free Up Space

When you no longer need a file on your Mac, you can use the “Free Up Space” option to immediately evict its data. When you do this, data is evicted from both the sync root and OneDrive’s cache, ensuring it occupies no bytes on disk. However, it is still available in the cloud.

 

Disk space usage

Files that are kept in the sync root do not count against disk space usage, unless they are marked as “Always Keep on This Device.”

For example, imagine the sync root contains five files, each 20mb in size, for a total of 100mb. These files are fully in-sync with the cloud. Now imagine another application asks about the amount of free space on the drive. These five files do not count against the disk space used, so the size reported to the application will be 100mb larger than you might expect.

The reason for this behavior is that in low disk space situations, these files can be automatically evicted from the disk to make room for more data. For instance, imagine an application wants to write 50mb of data to disk, but there is no more disk space. However, because the five files in the sync root can be evicted as needed, the write can safely complete. To do that, three of these five files will be evicted to make 60mb of space, and so the 50mb write completes.

This behavior has several implications:

• Files that have data in the sync root can be evicted at any time.
• The system will automatically clean up files as disk space runs low.
• Mark files as “Always Available on This Device” if you do not want them to be evicted.

We know that some organizations have scripts or something similar to automatically free up space for OneDrive content, usually at login or on a set schedule. Because macOS will automatically free space from OneDrive files as needed, such scripts are no longer necessary, unless you want to prevent users from keeping content in the “Always Keep on This Device” state.

 

File system feature support

The new Files On-Demand experience supports some existing features of APFS that were previously poorly supported by OneDrive. These include:

• File tags
• Last used date
• File system flags
• Extended attributes
• Type and creator code
• Symlinks

Note that changes to these properties do not sync to or from the cloud, but OneDrive will preserve them on the local file system. Previously, they might only have been preserved for a short while but overwritten by a change from the cloud.

Symlinks have special support in the new experience. They are preserved as a symlink in the sync root but do not sync to the cloud as a symlink, as the OneDrive cloud does not support symlinks. Instead, the symlink will sync to the cloud as a plain text file with the symlink target as its contents. Previously, OneDrive ignored symlinks.

 

Packages

OneDrive now supports syncing packages, or files that appear as a single file but are actually a directory with many files and folders underneath them. Some applications exclusively create packages. Additionally, most Mac applications are stored on disk as a package.

Traditionally, the problem with syncing packages has been that packages often contain file states that don’t sync well in the cloud. For example, some packages contain internal symlinks, extended attributes, or other file system quirks that can result in a corrupt package if these are not synced correctly. The OneDrive app itself is an example of such a package – previously, if you saved the OneDrive app in OneDrive and attempted to open it on another Mac, it would be corrupt.

With the new experience, packages are now synced as a single file with a hidden .pkgf extension appended automatically. For instance, if you create a file named “Foo.app” in your OneDrive, it will sync to the cloud as “Foo.app.pkgf”. OneDrive automatically strips the .pkgf extension on compatible Macs, and the file will appear as a valid package on all compatible Macs.

Note that Macs not running the new Files On-Demand experience cannot read files in the .pkgf format.

 

Unlink, unmount, and reset

When you unlink your Mac or unmount a syncing location, OneDrive will preserve the non-dataless contents of your sync root. This works by removing the symlink to ~/Library/CloudStorage, creating a new folder in its place, and moving the files in your sync root that are not dataless to that location. Files in the OneDrive cache path are removed.

OneDrive also ships with a reset script included in the application bundle. This script behaves in a similar way, except that the non-dataless files are always moved into a folder in the user’s home directory named something like “OneDrive (Archive).” Files in the cache path are removed, except if the cache path is located on a volume other than the home volume.

Over time, we expect to improve this experience.

Learning more

 To learn more about OneDrive,

• You can stay up-to-date on all things via the OneDrive Blog and the OneDrive release notes.
• Check out the new and updated OneDrive documentation.
• Take advantage of end-user training resources on our Office support center.

Thanks for reading!

Jack Nichols

Principal Software Architect - OneDrive

Update 2/1/2022

Hi everyone - Jack from Microsoft here. Just to quickly introduce myself, I'm the author of the original blog post, and also the architect for the OneDrive sync client. I'm the engineer who led the teams that designed and built Files On-Demand for Windows, macOS, and now the new macOS experience, so I have the most context about how Files On-Demand works and the trade-offs involved in building something like this.

The entire OneDrive team has been reading your comments, concerns and feedback, and we really appreciate everyone taking the time to write them. The community clearly has a lot of passion for OneDrive and how it works. I've spent many hours in the last week or two reading comments here and elsewhere, to understand how we can improve our macOS experience further.

Although we can't respond to all of you directly, there are a couple of themes and frequently asked questions that I wanted to answer to help provide some more clarity.

Why are all my files redownloading with this update? Why are my always-available files displaying a "not downloaded" icon?

Let me first set you at ease: your files aren't actually redownloading. What you are seeing is a bit of an optical illusion.

When your OneDrive instance is upgraded to the new Files On-Demand, macOS creates a new folder for your OneDrive files and we move your old folder into our cache location. We do it this way for many reasons, but two of the most important are that we can preserve your settings around which files are always available, and we can prevent the sync client from performing a costly reindex of all of your content.

As your files are brought into our cache, we tell the macOS File Provider platform about them. That causes the operating system to create the files in the new OneDrive folder that you will actually use. As part of telling the File Provider platform about your files, we include metadata about them, so that the operating system knows how big they are, what icons to show, and so forth.

Unfortunately, the current implementation of File Provider does not allow us to tell the operating system that we already have the file's contents available – so they appear to be online-only, even though their contents are safe in our cache, ready for the first time you access them. The best that we can do is tell the system to show the always available icon (the checkmark), but we can't tell the system to hide the "not downloaded" icon. The "not downloaded" icon is shown automatically by the File Provider system when the file is dataless in the sync root, and there's no current way for OneDrive to override this. Please know that we are actively investigating ways to address this, as we understand that it is a top source (if not the top source) of user confusion with this update.

The key thing to remember here is that if you double-click the files that we already have in our cache (files that you pinned when you selected “Always Keep On This Device” and anything you had downloaded before we did the upgrade), they will be retrieved and opened as expected, without any network traffic. This will work even if OneDrive isn't running, is paused, and so forth.

Why were my Finder favorite folders removed?

During the upgrade to the File Provider platform, OneDrive removes these favorites as they no longer point to a valid location. Most users will have a "OneDrive" favorite that will be removed in this manner, but a few users have dragged other folders of interest to this sidebar, which will also be removed if they were pointing at a OneDrive folder.

After the upgrade, if you want these favorite folders back, you will need to add them again by dragging your favorite folders to the Finder's sidebar.

How can I make it so that all my files are synced on my Mac and made available for offline access?

If you want all files synced on your device, you should pin the OneDrive folder. The easiest way to do this is to browse to your OneDrive in the Finder, change the view to Icons view, and then right-click the blank space between icons. Then, select Always Keep on This Device.. We're actively looking at ways to make this easier to configure on both macOS and Windows.

Is there a technical reason that explains why Files On-Demand must always be enabled?

OneDrive has taken a dependency on Apple's File Provider platform as part of this update, as we believe it is the right long-term path forward for the product. Files On-Demand functionality is a core part of Apple's File Provider platform, but File Provider offers a lot more than that, too. I'll touch on a few of those things here below.

• For instance, the little icons you see next to your files in OneDrive for macOS are now handled by the File Provider platform. This seems like a small thing, but it has a big impact. Before File Provider, we used something called a Finder Sync extension to show these icons in the Finder, but the Finder Sync extension was one of the top sources of problems on the macOS sync client. For example, the icons sometimes mysteriously disappeared, or performance problems affected the system. Because we eliminated the Finder Sync extension, we also eliminated an entire class of problems as a result.
• This has also improved the reliability of OneDrive running on macOS. As part of our normal sync process, the sync client occasionally runs checks to ensure everything is syncing correctly. The results of those checks are reported to us as telemetry which we use to help ensure there aren't emerging bugs, and most of the time, we find and fix bugs before anyone notices them. We've been very closely monitoring this telemetry as the new macOS Files On-Demand experience has rolled out, and we’ve noticed is that reliability is significantly better than what we had before. This translates to a much better sync experience for you.
• Finally, it is important to note that beginning in macOS 12.3, File Provider is the only Files On-Demand solution that is supported on macOS. Our prior solution is no longer supported. 

Files On-Demand has been available on Windows since 2017, and on macOS since 2018. In that time, we've progressed from the feature being opt-in only to being on by default for all users and have closely monitored how many users turn off Files On-Demand. Only a very small number of users disable Files On-Demand on both platforms, and there are two main reasons for that.

• Application compatibility: When Files On-Demand first shipped on Windows, some applications didn't work well with the way we stored files, or with anti-virus or other security software that was installed. Over time, we've fixed most of these problems. On macOS, we took a similarly cautious approach, but the application compatibility landscape is quite different and, in some ways, less complex. Still, there were a few cases where, due to the technology stack we were using on macOS, it made sense for certain users to disable Files On-Demand to preserve compatibility. With the File Provider platform, these problems have gone away, so application compatibility issues on macOS should be much less likely to occur. If you find something different with your setup, please reach out to your support contact so we can diagnose the issue.
• Locally available files: We know that keeping all content locally on the device is an important scenario for a small set of users. The best way to do this is to select Always Keep on This Device from the right-click menu to mark content as “pinned”.

Note that this applies to folders too; if you pin a folder, all of the content that's currently in it and new content that is added to it will be kept on the device.

Why is it sometimes slow to browse folders in my OneDrive?

To save space and system resources, the File Provider platform doesn't actually create the files OneDrive is managing until the first time you need them. The first time you open a OneDrive folder, macOS will create them on-demand. This can sometimes take a moment.

To avoid this delay, you can force the system to pre-create all of these files and folders for you without downloading your content. To do this, open a Terminal window and type "ls -alR ~/OneDrive" (or the path to your OneDrive). This will ensure all of your files and folders are created, but not downloaded, before you browse.

Can OneDrive be stored on an external drive? How does pinning a file work when I use an external drive? Are there multiple copies of my data?

I've seen several threads on this topic but let me clarify with an emphatic yes: external drives are fully supported without any difference in the end-user experience.

That said, external drive support as it exists today is implemented differently than it was in the past because of how File Provider works. Very few users are running this configuration, but for them, it's an important scenario because often their content won't fit on the home drive. File Provider doesn't support creating the sync root on any drive except for the home drive. So, we had to find a way to support external drives within these constraints.

When you choose a path to sync your OneDrive, we use that path to derive where we put your OneDrive cache path. If that path is on an external drive, we'll put the cache path there. We wanted to honor this preference because the cache path is where your pinned content is stored, as I'll explain below.

When your cache path is placed on an external drive, OneDrive tries to minimize the number of copies of your data it makes, and in most cases, only one copy will exist, usually in the sync root. If your home drive runs into disk pressure, the operating system will evict (dataless) files from the sync root, but they can always be obtained again from the cloud if needed. In some cases a file might exist in both places for a short time, but over time we will ship fixes that will optimize this further.

Pinned files on an external drive have behavior quirks that are worth understanding. If you pin a file, it will download to the cache path only, and will show both the checkbox and "not downloaded" state icons. This is because the file is dataless in the sync root but exists as a full file in the cache path. However, if you pin a file and also double-click it to open it, we will bring it into your sync root, so there are two copies, one in each location. Note that files brought into your sync root in this manner can still be evicted by macOS when it encounters disk pressure, but when this happens, only the file in the sync root is evicted. We still keep the data in your cache path, so you can always get to the file's content, even if you are offline.

The table below depicts how this works when you set up sync on external drives:

User action	File in sync root	File in cache path
Default state	Dataless	Dataless
Right click -> "Always Keep on This Device"	Dataless	Has data
Double click the file	Has data	Has data
macOS runs into disk pressure	Dataless	Has data
Right click -> "Free Up Space"	Dataless	Dataless

Essentially, the table depicts the guarantee that OneDrive makes about pinned files, namely that as long as we have a pinned file, we'll always keep the data available to you locally. The only time we don't have that data is either in the default state, or if you tell us to free up space for the file.

How does disk space usage work in the sync root?

In the original blog post, I mentioned that files with data in the sync root do not count against your disk usage. Some people took this to mean that these files occupy zero bytes on the disk, but what actually happens is that these files don't count against your used disk space. That is, if an application asks, "How much space is free on this disk?" that answer will exclude these files.

There are a handful of special cases where these rules don't apply:

• Pinned files, if your cache path is on your home drive. In this situation, the file in the cache path and the file in the sync root are Apple File System (APFS)clones of one another, and although there are two files, they share the same space on disk until one changes. File Provider won't evict files that have a clone, and such files will count against used disk space.
  • If your cache path is on an external drive, there is no clone, so pinned files can be evicted from your sync root and don't count against used space on your home drive.
• OneDrive designates certain file types as non-evictable, and therefore these files count against used space. The most important of these file types are shortcuts to OneNote files, which only occupy a handful of bytes. This matches the behavior on Windows as well.

The system logic to decide what files count against used disk space and what files do not is provided by the File Provider platform. If you find behavior that works differently than I've described here, please reach out to support, or to Apple.

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.

Why is my AutoSave not working after this upgrade?

We have been made aware of users experiencing issues with AutoSave when using the Store version of the OneDrive app. We are actively working to resolve this in the next few days. In the interim, if you want to get unblocked, you can move to the Standalone build.
To move to the Standalone build from the Store version, you can unlink your account, uninstall the App Store version, and reinstall the Standalone version from this link: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=823060.
We will keep you updated about the fix on this thread.

Update 2/3: The fix for AutoSave for the App Store version was released in the Store today. It is fixed with 22.002.0201.0005.

If you still have more queries feel free to reach out to the team directly on this discussion thread.  Files On-Demand for macOS QA - Microsoft Tech Community

Thank you for your constant support and partnership!

Jack 

[Tooth_Fairy]

My OneDrive App migration took 3 days to complete and OneDrive has been sitting IDLE for more than a day, I have not updated a single file over OneDrive. In IDLE state, with no syncing traffic going on, it consumes 11.42 GB   of ram on a MacBook Air M1 16GB. After the migration was done it consumed "only" 5.5 GB of ram and it just went up from there.

How is it possible for a syncing app to eat so much ram? Do you expect us to buy a 32GB MacBook Pro to run OneDrive? Microsoft, fix this before we all leave this service, this whole mess is madness coming from a BIG company with a lot of resources. Once we leave, we won't come back.

[jgreenman]

I think I'm done here.   I'm furious about losing 3 days of productivity at this point, but also sad that Microsoft destroyed a product that I really liked using.   OneDrive was -- by far -- the most useful, well-designed and simple MS product I had used in years, and I really (honestly!) loved it.    I've been primarily using Macs for years now, but I used OneDrive for sharing ALL large files in emails and texts, and I introduced probably dozens of people to the product.   "What is this 

1drv.ms link you are sending me" people would ask.   Everyone else would use Google or iCloud, but I would use 1drv.ms.   And I'd been using it since the SkyDrive days and Live Folders before that.  It was one of the key reasons I re-invested in MSFT after not owning the stock for a decade.   As many have said here, this was a mission-critical app for their personal workflow, or their company's workflow.   But this kind of complete failure to understand use-cases and do reasonable QA on a widely used software product is just inexcusable and profoundly worrying when it comes to your key personal and business files.   I guess I will dive further into the Apple world now, and use iCloud.   Sad to see OneDrive die like this.   

[pastsand9914]

Dear @Jack Nichols + @Ankita Kirti 

I would like to echo all the other comments and add that I am disappointed at how the update was rolled out and it also had a huge impact on my business and the way we work. I have wasted a lot of time trying to access my files / troubleshoot the issue including several hours with Microsoft Support who initially seemed unaware of the issue and guided to me to uninstall, switch to the standalone package and just 'wait for it to sync and it will all be fine again'.

Obviously it's not.  I know you say my files are technically 'still there' albeit in a different location but they are not easily accessible and take some time to load.  I also rely heavily on autosave and despite switching to the standalone package it still doesn't work for me which is increases the risk of losing work + don't get the benefit of version history and risk creating conflicting files across devices.  Another thing I notice is OneDrive sync client uses a lot of memory + CPU but isn't 'doing anything' . See screenshot.

Whilst I recognise there may be technical reasons that prompted the change, the way it was rolled out could have been improved. I was caught unaware in the middle of an important project and was unable to access my documents after the update took place (even though you say they are there). I'm lucky to have a decent internet connection when the optical illusion you mentioned was 'processing changes' and 'syncing'.

I switched from the App Store version to the stand alone package but auto-save still doesn't work. I also tried resetting, unlinking, deleting all OneDrive related preference files, restarting the computer, talking to Microsoft Support, but unfortunately still doesn't work. 

Look forward to you rolling out a 'hot fix' ASAP. Please do your best to communicate any important information, required action from users and potential impacts during subsequent roll outs.

Thanks

EDIT - I just noticed that my AutoSave feature is now working again. But seems to be taking up a lot of CPU / RAM to do it. (See screen shots). Still experiencing the issue with pinned files taking long time to appear and then load.

[Bustycat]

I really hope the team to address the two major issues:

• Unable to temporarily delete (move to Trash Can)
• Unreliable performances including communication errors, slow checking, etc.

[Simonl72]

Hi

I have not read through all of this but I'm having enormous trouble with OneDrive app on MacOS 12.2. The app refuses to work at all now. Problems started a few days ago and have got worse, to the point that the app will not work. See below.

 Also, if I go to Extensions in system preferences, it keeps on switching the extension on and off all the time. Something is definitely conflicting. I am not permitted to upload the screen recording but it the tick switches on and off by itself continuously.

Please urgently repair as I'm unable to work effectively without it.

[SlowButEffective]

I can't imagine a single user who is satisfied with losing the ability to move items to the trash. The problem is with the Finder and not OneDrive per se, as others have noted that PathFinder does trash properly from ~\Library\CloudStorage. Apple is very slow to fix this kind of thing. In the meantime, if you want a workaround, create a To Trash folder and put it in the Finder sidebar. You can move files and folders from OneDrive to the To Trash folder. Then from time to time trash all the items in the To Trash folder. Or have Hazel (or a macro program) do it automatically. You lose the Put Back capability with this solution, and you lose the ability to use Cmd-Delete*, but it's better than permanently deleting the file.

*I tried to use Keyboard Maestro to trash the file using Cmd-Delete, or at least to move the file to the To Trash folder I described above, but it just beeps at me in either case. If anyone gets this to work please post here.

[Edward_Clayton]

This FOD always-on development is a disaster for me. I keep my files on my mac as a searchable archive which I frequently search in for information from my prior projects, sometimes from 10-15 years ago. Now it is no longer searchable in Spotlight. Please reverse this policy as soon as possible. 

[Julie515]

The information on why this change was made is helpful. But I would like to know if Microsoft understands that it was not helpful to all, and was destructive to many. We need the option back. You have damaged -- however unintentionally -- small businesses. The explanation does not fix the problem. 

[Jack Nichols]

A couple of posters asked about trash support. First though, I want to provide a little bit of context about why you see what you see in the product today.

OneDrive on macOS has never fully had proper trash support for Files On-Demand because of how dataless files work. In the previous version of Files On-Demand, the way we implemented this was to first download trashed files to your OneDrive, and then put them in the trash. This created a weird situation where in order to free up space and delete things, you first had to fill it up before you could put it in the trash. We received a lot of feedback from a wide variety of customers about this problem over the years.

For the first version of our File Provider implementation, we made the decision to immediately delete files locally, and make our online recycle bin more discoverable. That latter change is rolling out now and you'll soon see a button (if you don't already) when you click the OneDrive icon that will take you directly to the online recycle bin. This approach ensures that we aren't unnecessarily consuming disk space and network bandwidth when you go to delete files, but also ensures you can find your cloud recycle bin more easily.

Properly supporting the trash in OneDrive on macOS is very much on our radar, but I don't have a timeline to share for when it will be available. Our goal is to eventually bring the same trash behavior we have on Windows to macOS, where dataless files are deleted immediately and non-dataless files end up in the local trash. 

Jack

[krisgreen65]

I'm super grateful for the hot fix being pushed out via the App Store. It's resolved my AutoSave issue... Thanks for listening guys. 

KG

[DoneWithMicrosoft]

This suggestion to "pin" files by right clicking between folders is nothing more than a placebo. Clearly the files are not stored locally because it still takes 1-2 seconds for the file to open after it is clicked.

In addition, when a file is deleted, it no longer ends up in the local recycle bin. You have to log in to OneDrive on the web and use Microsoft's recycle bin.

In a world where it is common for people work remotely (and sometimes not connected to the internet), not permitting local storage is absurd. There is simply no valid reason to not allow people to store all of their files locally, nor is there any technical limitation that prevents this. None.  Same with forcing people to use Microsoft's recycle bin.  

This is beyond bad, it has made OneDrive unusable to the point where I have to migrate to a different provider.  I need to be able to work, and that means on an airplane and other places where there is no internet access.

The persons who made this decision and implemented these changes need to be fired immediately, and then Microsoft needs to restore the broken functionality using competent engineers who understand how the world works.

[Vorlagenbauer]

Hey Microsoft

This change has caused us some sleepless nights...

Working with Tools that use Folders that are syct with Onedrive (for example Windows with Parallels, Lightroom, etc...) - this change was absolutly horor!

The biggest problem for us was, that the change just happend without any warning...

[Trevor_Pott]

You know, apart from swift changes that restore removed functionality, the number one thing that people actually want to see here is Microsoft to just say, plainly and without qualification, "mistakes were made".

The problem isn't just "ya done bleeped up".  The problem is that Microsoft's response to this has been as tone deaf as it is to every other ridiculous footbullet (for example, deciding we can no longer move the taskbar).  The body corporate and all the subservient meat mechs that attend it emit a unified tone of "we did nothing wrong, our choices were perfect, you're just all too simple to understand".

Vista. Windows 8. On and on, projects big and small spanning decades. Nothing has really changed; the corporate culture we are forced to deal with as hostages unable to escape this ecosystem remains. Reality or not (and the perception of the beholder defined interpretation), much of the response to this release reinforces an interpretation that what is at play here it an arrogant belief that Microsoft Knows Best; that the travails of the mundanes are irrelevant.

That we're just holding it wrong.  That's super butts.

[LuciferMorningStar]

@Trevor_Pott Yes, there should be an apology from Onedrive Team for not giving prior warnings and causing inconvenience to so many people but we shouldn't take it this far. I think we should stick to Onedrive, particularly on macOS for now.

[greencatdude]

@Jack Nichols - The sync issue did resolve, and syncing resumed afterwards.

I was able to Make Available Offline all of the root folders, and was able to click the cloud to fully make available all but my large archive folder.

However, after clicking the cloud on my large archive folder I'm back to getting the memory issue- even after quitting OneDrive and rebooting the machine.  Currently at 56GB of memory used and climbing.

[Trevor_Pott]

@LuciferMorningStar I think at this point in the game an apology is warranted, but it needn't have been at the beginning.  Everyone has software releases that don't meet user expectations. Especially when the impetus for it is "the folks who make the underlying OS did unexpected things and didn't give us enough time to react". "Mistakes were made" doesn't necessarily imply contrition, merely an acknowledgement that existing processes failed to fully capture user requirements, resulting in a high-friction release.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's corporate culture does not allow for these types of acknowledgements. It doesn't even really allow for acknowledging that user concerns are valid. And that's really the problem; the doctrine that extant processes are above reproach, and as a result that customer concerns must be the result of customer inadequacy, rather than process or vision failures internal to Microsoft.

At some point before these releases go out, they should be run by people who say things like "wait, what the **** are you thinking"...and these people need to actually be listened to. Doing so, however, would require evolution of said corporate culture that has been out of Microsoft's reach for well over a decade.

At the end of the day, that is my chief concern here: whether or not the OneDrive team is allowed to (and cares to) undo the damage done to their product...customer-hostile design changes are regularly pushed out by Microsoft with near-zero user consultation or communication. When user consultation does happen, it's typically with office-bound "purchasing decision-makers" who work for their largest customers; a myopia our entire industry is riddled with.

Somewhere, under all of this, is a Strategic Goal to get as much of a customer's data and as many workloads into Azure as possible. All of this - all of this - is about nothing more than driving subscription revenue: the holy grail of pleasing Wall Street. Priorities set, teams trundle forward in an attempt to evolve their individual areas of responsibility to align with the company vision, and the end result is ignorance of real-world use cases that negatively affect millions - sometimes billions - of people.

Not because everyone involved is corrupt or totally soulless, but because Microsoft's entire corporate philosophy is based on the twin precepts of homogenizing how their customer base uses their software and services (in order to drive down support costs), and getting everyone into the cloud to drive subscription revenue. And the body corporate doesn't particularly care if we don't like it: we're hostages here. Locked in to the ecosystem and they know it. They can lose double-digit percentages of customers and still come out on top because they'll have driven support costs so low, and gotten so many over to a subscription model that the almighty shareholder value will still keep on growing.

So whilst it does feel good for us all to vent our spleens here at the OneDrive team for what we perceive to be callous design choices that have caused us distress, to some extent they are caught between a rock and a hard place here.

The problem is - and has been for years - that Microsoft does not have passionate advocates for the end user within the organization that have enough authority and clout to reign in the corporate monofocus on pleasing the rich people's feelings graph. When Wall Street is the primary consideration for your corporate strategy, customers inevitably suffer.

Even if the OneDrive team manage to resolve the issues with the specific release, the underlying culture that birthed the problem remains, and the goal that created this release - to make the cloud the default for everything so that none of us can ever live without Microsoft subscriptions - will persist. That is the issue that ultimately needs to be addressed...and almost certainly never will be.

[dataveg]

@Jack Nichols -At least you have brought some humor to this. I love your expressions "New experience..." and "Optical illusion..." - Back when I managed production software teams we used to call those 'Regressions' and 'Bugs' respectively. I may have to steal your euphemisms.

However, as I assume you are hoping for a career in software rather than stand-up it would really help if MS can recognize that this is a MASSIVE mess-up that has caused real damage to our businesses. I just want to know what genius pushed this through without reference to use cases or testing. Surely somebody raised a flag? If not, I would be very worried.

[noision]

@Jack Nichols 

Thanks for your comments as to the delete issue. Using Cocoatech Pathfinder, it works pretty much as you indicated it used to work before: deleting a pinned filed (local) from the sync root folder places it in the local trash bin. And deleting an on-demand file causes the file to dissappear from the folder, but, behind the scenes, Pathfinder is downloading it and then places the file in the trash bin. If you undelete it, then the file is placed back in the sync root folder and I suppose is subject to removal if the hd needs the space.

I agree its a bit goofy, but in a future iteration of onedrive, if deleting either places the file in the local trash bin (if local file) or directly deletes an non-downloaded on-demand file, there probably should be a notice that such is happening that pops up from OneDrive and just lets the user know that despite the dire warning from Finder, that the file can be still found in the OneDrive trash bin. Of course, the user should be able to turn off such notifications in settings once they get it.

Allowing easy instant access to the onedrive trash bin is a good thing to deal with this.

[dataveg]

AAARGh - @Jack Nichols it is worse than I thought. I didn't get ANY work done yesterday as I was fighting this problem, but I thought I was there.

However now I try and get back to work git doesn't work at all. It showed everything as changed, which I just committed, but now I cannot make ANY subsequent commits, it just crashes out with Git: fatal: cannot lock ref 'HEAD':

So now I have to move EVERYTHING out of OneDrive. I know this works in Dropbox. WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO US???

Seriously - very seriously - I want to actually talk to someone there. Can you give me a name of someone I can call? And I don't mean support - they haven't even been made aware of these issues (not that they'd have a clue anyway).

[dario_s]

On one of my Macs, I had "Always keep on this device" enabled for my main work folder in OneDrive. Things were working more or less OK for the past couple of days (minus the obvious, already mentioned annoyances) until just about now when OneDrive (or macOS) decided to mark all files and all folders again as not being downloaded. Total folder sizes have also disappeared (I tend to keep these on), but clicking on the cloud icons has helped for most of the folders and files as they were still in OneDrive's cache.

What worries me though, is that as I was looking through folders to try and figure out what was happening, I came across several corrupted files (JPEGs) that were fine on other devices and in the cloud but were corrupted on this particular machine (Preview wouldn't open the files, claiming that they are damaged). I had to replace them with copies downloaded from the web. This has a broader consequence as it essentially means that even with files "always kept on the device," we cannot trust the local copy anymore for any local backups (or anything basically).

Am I supposed now to manually go through thousands of files and folders, checking that they are OK? Just a single corrupted local file is enough to lose confidence in OneDrive (which has, in my case, been working perfectly for years). I'm also not too happy to move to iCloud Drive as it has its syncing issues now and then but has never corrupted or lost a file.

[fbobrazil]

To every upset OneDrive user out there…

GIVE UP! Microsoft doesn’t care! Did you read the statement they made on MacRumors? I quote an excerpt from the text below and recommend reading the full statement (link at the end):

“Files On-Demand has been available on Windows since 2017, and on macOS since 2018. In that time, we've progressed from the feature being opt-in only to being on by default for all users and have closely monitored how many users turn off Files On-Demand. Only a very small number of users disable Files On-Demand on both platforms, and there are two main reasons for that…”

They basically say: you are a “small number of users”, not important to us and we don’t care.

There’s no hope guys. We’re on our own! If you are expecting a fix, apology or even at least an acknowledgement that something really harmful to our work and business was made, forget it! It’s not going to happen.

We’re all losing working days and sleeping nights on this. But be sure Microsoft isn’t. Not even their own support was made aware of this major problem… major for us… not for them. I can assure that @Jack Nichols , @Ankita Kirti and the whole OneDrive team are sleeping safe and sound, unlike the rest of us, “small number of users”!

We’re plain and old collateral damage!

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/02/03/microsoft-responds-mac-onedrive-criticism/

[dario_s]

Can anyone who has tried the current Dropbox beta for Macs confirm whether it is reliably keeping all the files locally (and not streaming them)?

I haven't used Dropbox in years, and I know they are migrating to using the File Provider, which is fine, just as long as the implementation is more reliable than what Microsoft has done with OneDrive now.

[Julie515]

I received an email from DropBox saying there is a glitch with online-only files and Macs, but that they are working hard and fast to get it fixed. The are probably watching the OneDrive meltdown and seeing an opportunity.

[MichaelBeausoleil]

This is not a 'new experience'. Microsoft and Apple are attempting to seize agency over how we manage both our drive space and our Internet usage. These are not your domains to govern. You may not agree with our strategies and feel there's a better way but that is not your decision with regard to my resources. I feel like I'm only licensed to use this machine and am granted access to this data; that it is owned by a corporation that may do with it whatever it wishes and I have no say in the matter. It feels like forced collectivism with no allowance for individual liberty. That I'm only inconvenienced by this 'new experience' due to the fact that both this cloud service and my machine are furnished/mandated by my employer is a blessing. Had I any personal stake in OneDrive, I'd have dropped this service like a bad habit. I'm very glad to be using an alternative solution for my personal digital storage needs.

[Gregleleu]

This is a nightmare I keep having to quit OneDrive (which for some reason takes hours) and restart it as the RAM usage gets to 50 GB!!!!

The app was buggy before these changes but this is insane. And I get that changes in macOS forced MS to make changes, but please say that and not "we've made great changes for you".
@Jack NicholsHonestly, why has OneDrive for mac received so little attention?

[PiotrM-ciniak]

Since update the whole sync went bonkers. Example from a random xlsx file:

1. For a second it shows that file has auto save function enabled,

2. Then it shows error "File cannot be saved in desired location"

3. In said folder tmp file is created of the file that could not be saved

4. Closing Excel and reopening it by the app itself (not a file) and choosing problematic file make this file synced and saved properly

5. But what's happening now? File again has disabled auto sync and it can't be reactivated without starting from step 1 which is not an auto save activation but forced one-time save basically.

6. What's better sometime icon for auto save is turned on but file still doesn't sync at all

It's like something is wrong with this "File on demand" feature because it looks like App (Word/ Excel whatever) tries to save the file, but something doesn't let it and it deletes it asap from the local drive before file is able to be pushed to the cloud to utilize "files on demand" bulshit.

Like wtf is happening? Is it Apple's or MS fault?

[JasonChicagoVC]

This has been an absolute disaster.  I performed the macOS upgrade and then was on the road, we work entirely off of OneDrive so that meant I had ZERO of my files with me on my computer.  Further, we setup OneDrive to be on external hard drives and now that it pulls everything into the root directory of the smaller local drive it basically fills up our hard drives.  We've had to wipe computers clean and start with a fresh OS install in an attempt to clean up the mess, but then when we setup OneDrive and create the base directly on the external hard drive all we get is a link on the external drive and all the files back into the local OS partition.  Whoever came up with an architecture that doesn't let you separate your data from the OS should be fired, and this basically means we can't use external hard drives anymore for OneDrive partitions (I know there is some work under the hood to make that still kind of happen, but my local hard drive is still filling up and creating massive GBs of purgeable data...horribly inefficient and so dangerous to fill up the drive that contains the OS).  It is IT 101 to have the OS on separate partition from the data files.

I've spent almost my whole week dealing with this disaster and nothing else.  I reached out to MS support and they were completely clueless and closed the ticket as "resolved" because the support person was going home for the night and couldn't even grasp what I was asking.  This is all so unfortunate as I've built my company around Office 365 and OneDrive but given how horribly this was handled am now looking at alternatives.  If you can fix this before I switch I will reconsider, but I sincerely doubt anything will get fixed.

People work off external hard drives and they often work without internet connections.  Whoever on the OneDrive team didn't realize this and made the awful decisions around this architecture and to make all files "on demand" (without even telling us) should not be in charge of this product.  Everyone already had everything setup in OneDrive via the "Choose Folders" options as to which folders we wanted online vs. offline, why in the world do I now have to redo all that configuration (and redownload everything), on top of all the other issues (spotlight, trash, and external drives)?  Just unbelievable how horribly this was implemented and being managed...I don't care if Apple forced the change via their APIs or not.

[murdocdv]

Just wanted to echo that my OneDrive instance, though it sorted itself, has:

• Crashed mandating a system reboot to resume working
• Has been seen using 15 GB RAM putting memory pressure on the system
  • Just started OneDrive and just to stop churning, > 200% CPU and > 1 GB of RAM with no local files changes since last launch.
• Taking a Screenshot directly to an idle OneDrive causes a 200% CPU consumption for a while
• Still see a OneDrive Finder Integration process...thought that would be gone.

You've got to have a serious memory leak and this CPU usage is no joke.

[garethoakes1]

@Jack Nichols the updates are very much appreciated and understood. Two concerns remain for me:

1. Progress is inevitable but the way this was rolled out is unacceptable. Many were caught off-guard in the middle of urgent work (myself included). With no notice, we were given a critical problem to solve (where have all my files gone?).
2. I am finding consistently high CPU usage, even with OneDrive "Office file collaboration" disabled AND individual Office application Autosync disabled. If I open Powerpoint and change a single letter, without saving, OneDrive process goes to 200+% CPU usage and stays there for quite some time. I see others are experiencing high CPU usage too. This is a major regression and very urgently needs a fix.

[jimio]

This has been a nightmare. I use OneDrive because it gives me a sense of security. I had my folders linked to the Finder, meaning I could easily access files and have them save automatically to the cloud. That feature has been taken away overnight. 

I’ve tried the workaround of pinning all my folders (I’ve set my parent folder to “Always available on this device” so everything should be pinned) but it doesn’t provide the same sense of security. I’m working on documents and they say “Saved to my Mac” at the top. Are they also saved on OneDrive? I haven’t a clue. I can check through the browser but it’s very disruptive and it risks creating sync issues and multiple versions. If I turn on “Autosave”, I have to navigate to the folder that the file is already in. Does that create a duplicate? All these questions are now swimming around in my head when I just want a secure place to save my files. 

This update has taken away my trust in the product. I’m paying for a TB of storage but I’m not allowed to use it in the way I want to. Please, Microsoft, do a CTRL+Z on this update. 

[MikeG17]

The latest patch seems to work for me. After wiping out all my previous attempts (Application: OneDrive -> Show Package Contents -> Resources -> ResetOneDriveApp), and deleting all symlinks in my home folder, I reinstalled the AppStore version of OneDrive. I used Teams to sync my files (business account). I can sync multiple Teams sites under the same account. I am now able to use OneDrive files locally with AutoSave and all, like it used to work. Great!

However, when I add a second business account (different Teams account), and try to sync my Teams folders, it fails with "Cannot sync right now." - and it keeps spinning the sync icon. If I do it the other way around (first account 2 sync, then account 1 sync), account 2 works, but account 1 doesn't.

So, there still seems to be an issue syncing with multiple accounts. As a consultant I'm normally syncing with a number of clients at the same time. This has always worked fine. A fix is appreciated!

[jrlaff]

Since the last update that migrated to the File Provider platform, all my files are gone. I have read Jack Nichols' update from February 2, but I still haven't been able to get all my files to appear in the Finder.

As Jack Nichols stated that it was only a matter of seeing a wrong status in the Finder, I uninstalled OneDrive completely, installed the latest standalone version (22.012.0116.0001) and singed back in. After a long time with OneDrive busy (probably getting the list of files but not their contents), I was able to mark a folder as "Always keep on this device" and it started to download the contents. For hours. Once done, I went to check the folder in the Finder, only to find that non of its contents appear, until I wait for a few seconds. Then, navigating to one of the subfolders does the same: the contents only appear after two or more seconds.

The subfolders do not appear in Spotlight searches neither.

This is an absolute nightmare. What can I do to have all my files present in my OneDrive folder, and not waiting somewhere for me to open every single folder?

Fix it, for goodness sake.

[Simonl72]

@MikeG17 thanks! Your tip worked. I reinstalled from the App Store today and so far, all seems fine. I have 3 OneDrive accounts and all are syncing fine. (Yes, everything is in the cloud and not local but that's not a trainsmash for me.)

[rressler]

Don't forget to Pin your Zoom background files ( Always keep on this device) as Zoom does not like to wait  for downloading files. Wait at least a half hour for the few files to actually download so you can enjoy your "experience as usual." 

I would pin everything from OneDrive on down but I am afraid that I will lose all my CPU to OneDrive.

[Mike6003]

It's a disaster. The problems have cost me days. On top of that, the crappy OneDrive app sucks my battery dry (M1 Macbook). The M1 Macbook gets really hot. Not even rendering 8k video can do that. What a bummer! What a super new experience...

 

[RikoNw]

I've lost all my data for 20 years that i've collecting. Because of your new OneDrive glich. Upper folder marked as pinned (always on the device) but not all files and directories ready in subdirectories. But OneDrive is reporting that sync is complete. If you move this uncomplete folder from OneDrive to your local disk - OneDrive will create other copy of this directory and will report thats is ok. If you move this directory from OneDrive again (because you think this copy is full and complete now) - you will rewrite uncomplete data with new upcomplete data !!!!! OneDrive backup (rollback to 3 weeks before) is just doing nothing !

Burn-in-Hell !

[wsrb1]

How could you be "excited to share that we have begun rolling out the new Files On-Demand experience to all our customers using macOS 12.1 or later."?  Forcing Files On-Demand was a total disaster.  @Jack Nichols, the fact that it takes pages for you to describe how users can get their OneDrive files back to the same point they were at before this release says it all.  I spent 6 hours yesterday trying to get copies on all my 240 GB+ of files back on my hard drive so I could move them to another service, which I have now done.  If "Always Keep on This Device" actually worked, it would have been much easier.  I'm certain OneDrive servers have been burning up the last few weeks with users downloading files to get them back.  

Such poor implementation.

[YuweiZHU]

Hello!

I would like to share a method I found that could make the "not downloaded" icon to disappear, after you have selected "Always Keep on This Device".

First, execute "ls -alR ~/OneDrive"  in Terminal.

Second, click the "not downloaded" icon and wait it (the entire folder) to be downloaded.

If you do not execute "ls -alR ~/OneDrive"  in Terminal, it might fail while downloading.

Thanks a lot for the information and help from @Ankita Kirti.

[Mike6003]

1. where is the update on Apples AppStore we have been waiting for days? If you were one of my employees, I would have kicked your.....
2. where can I send the invoice. Microsoft has paralyzed my business for several days with this dilettantish update. There is also the risk that the battery of my new Macbook M1 has been damaged. 
3. please avoid talking about "optical illusions" in the future. It is rather a customer deception. How can Microsoft steal all customer data from the devices, make them only available online and then declare it as a feature?

[Michael_Dufranne]

Hello, I have tried that but without luck. I suck at linux, my one drive is in my user folder so I assume that path is correct...

Can anyone help ?

Why is it sometimes slow to browse folders in my OneDrive?

To save space and system resources, the File Provider platform doesn't actually create the files OneDrive is managing until the first time you need them. The first time you open a OneDrive folder, macOS will create them on-demand. This can sometimes take a moment.

To avoid this delay, you can force the system to pre-create all of these files and folders for you without downloading your content. To do this, open a Terminal window and type "ls -alR ~/OneDrive" (or the path to your OneDrive). This will ensure all of your files and folders are created, but not downloaded, before you browse.

[Michael_Dufranne]

The current version of the stand-alone app does not allow the finder search to find all the files. I have tried the command line in linux to make all files available. It did not work. Help, I really can't not work like this.

Question for Microsoft : the change you introduced clearly is not working. It is only due with OSX 12.3. Why don't you roll us back to the previous version and keep developing and testing until it is stable ?

[tcrbang]

I just read Jack Nichols' Update 2/1/2022, amended to the original blog post.

Loads of technical motivations on why the change happened and the best efforts Microsoft implemented to live within the limitations of macOS.

That's all great info, but you know what? I don't care. Really. "I'm a bit of a scientist myself" and the crucial part missing in this whole blunder is the humanitarian oversight.

Last weekend OneDrive wanted to do an update which I've let it do so many times before because nothing's ever broken before. So I trusted the update. Not one mention of the fundamental, momumental changes that were about to take place. Zero warnings, not even a blip of "we're changing things and moving things around up but don't worry. We got you!"

What I got instead was me clicking to my OneDrive folder like I have for years and getting errors that the folder no longer existed. I have a Mac to put files on. That's the point of me having it and having those files removed from the OneDrive folder I'd come to trust was the worst possible thing that could've happened.

I wrote this to OneDrive support over email:

"Maybe next time the Engineering team could give this same experience to their mom and watch her freak completely out when her OneDrive folder is completely empty. No two decades worth of pictures. No documents and photo scans of newspaper clippings of family history research dating back to the 1880s. No documents on her father’s death. No covid vaccination records. Nothing in the folder at all."

Sure, Microsoft posted this article on Jan 12th outlining the "upgrades" and another before that last June, but again I don't care. I don't read the OneDrive blog. I didn't even know it existed until my life was turned upside.

Like seriously, how hard is it here in 2022 to throw up an alert that says, "Hey... big changes are coming to OneDrive, read this blog post before you update."

Apparently it's too hard.

[johncwelch]

How could you be "excited to share that we have begun rolling out the new Files On-Demand experience to all our customers using macOS 12.1 or later."?  Forcing Files On-Demand was a total disaster.  @Jack Nichols, the fact that it takes pages for you to describe how to get users back the the point they were at before this release was issued says it all.  I spent 6 hours yesterday trying to get copies on all my 240 GB+ of files back on my hard drive so I could move them to another service, which I have now done.  If "Always Keep on This Device" actually worked, it would have been much easier.  I'm certain OneDrive servers have been burning up the last few weeks with users downloading files to get them back.  

Such a poor implementation.

"See, @wsrb1, clearly the problem is that you don't understand the wondrous beauty of forced Files-On-Demand. Because if you really did, you'd have no problem with this decision."

At least that's what all of MS's replies to people sound like to me, some variant of The Courtier's Reply, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_reply. Over and over the same tone: if you don't like this, it shows you don't understand it.

we do understand it. we also don't like it.

[Trevor_Pott]

@tcrbang You make the assumption that anyone at Microsoft views us as human beings. We're not. We're "users". We don't even graduate to "customer" unless we are a VP-level individual with purchasing authority and work for a Fortune 2000 or a government.

I seriously doubt that one person at Microsoft will lose even one minute of sleep over the fact that some cell on a spreadsheet lost a lifetime's worth of data, or that these changes may make it so that some remote workers can no longer meet the requirements of their employment. None of that will change their revenue or gross margin figures by more than a rounding error. Not even long-term reputational damage matters, because by the time that manifests enough to start impacting QBR analysis, everyone involved will have moved on to new roles, and clean-up will be Someone Else's Problem.

It isn't hard to add humanity to your development or QA processes. But the reality of life is that they DON'T get added if the incentive structures don't exist to support them. This whole debacle is a failure of corporate culture, and specifically a failure of the leadership chain that is making decisions around Microsoft's long-term cloud strategy and the incentives related to it. I'm willing to bet that even if the Onedrive team were themselves human enough to care about all of this, they just never had the time or resources to implement compassion. That was never in the budget, and even if it were, there just wasn't time for it in order to meet the launch deadline.

What matters to Microsoft emphatically is not that their customers are happy. What matters to Microsoft is that their customers modify their behaviours, business processes, and even how they live their lives in order to accommodate what is optimally remunerative for Microsoft. It has been that way for well over a decade: Microsoft does not serve its customers; it serves Wall Street. Customers are simply obstacles. Emotive, unruly, unhelpful obstacles that must be "guided to the right decision". The Right Decision, of course, being that which works best for Microsoft.

Our needs were never part of the equation.

[Emanuele_Barone]

This is...a problem. When the Mac first appeared demanding that all developers use its toolbox, Microsoft made a point to use custom resources in Word and Excel, so this sense of "we're just abiding Apple's guidelines" doesn't stick. I have OneDrive precisely because it grants me a copy on every machine of the same content locally, and I did not have to beg that behavior for every single file of my 124GB I keep on it. I also have it on an external drive because it's growing steadily and I can't upgrade the SSD inside my M1 Mini. So talk to Cook or Federighi or whomever and find a way to get the old behavior back.

[UserNameNotFound]

Is there a way to force all files to download in the synch root? I.e. a command that would emulate the “Double click on file” user action, such that both synch root and cache path have the state of “Has Data”? 

Basically, similar to this command from the blog above, but where the file is actually downloaded too: 

To do this, open a Terminal window and type "ls -alR ~/OneDrive" (or the path to your OneDrive). This will ensure all of your files and folders are created, but not downloaded, before you browse.

It is truly surprising Microsoft would roll this out without notice. My photo software can no longer view all my photos and I can’t figure how to keep a local copy of them. 

[chrisc151]

In Finder: When files are pinned and you are in column view, hit the space bar to quick view the file... you only get file information and a thumbnail vs. a preview of the file...  This is a new behavior for files stored in onedrive.  If you hit the space bar on a file that is not in onedrive, the quick view shows the file contents.

is this something that can be fixed?

[MarcoSetteQuattro]

Anyway, it doesn't work. 

On my macbook, in the Onedrive location, I see folders, some file, but I can't open them, when I try to open something, it just go loading forever. I can't copy them elsewhere, when I try, Preparing copy appears and stay there.

Onedrive app says all files are in sync. 

In the web interface, some folders and files are missing. The amount of space is wrong, less than it should be. I see lot of file in the bin, files that I never deleted. 

In the Recent files (again in web interface), I see two file last opened in year 3618. Millenium bug?

[david68]

I've found a slight 'fix' to this debacle.  I first did this - 'open a Terminal window and type "ls -alR ~/OneDrive" (or the path to your OneDrive)' and then clicked the Cloud icon of the folder to fix.  Then in Finder sitting at an unexpanded OneDrive root folder, press Option/Right Arrow.  This fully expands the subfolder tree, and this initially seemed to 'work', in that I got an accurate folder total size.   The only issue - files subsequently copied into the folder are reverted back to 'On Demand'.  It seems this is in fact intended behaviour by Microsoft,

I well recall when Apple gave the middle finger to Pro a few years back users its Mac range slipped to single figures, my close friend took direct part in subsequent QA discussions and Apple reversed course.  My IT company in Melb. AU sold almost 10yrs ago had well over 4k SMB and Mid customers over 25yrs and it's people like those on this forum and I who are the influencers of many - I've been inundated with queries and so far I'm saying sit tight.

That said, I've watched closely the replies above from MS Team @Ankita Kirti @Jack Nichols @gacarini @Carter_MSFT and it seems there is silence on whether 'On Demand' is here to stay, and local or offline files gone.  I sincerely hope that's not the case, however if it is then this is moving into Class Action territory and/or Consequential Damages for any prolonged outage or God forbid if data is lost.

I get MS want sticky customers, who doesn't - but this is not the way to do it.!!!

Taking away MY RIGHT to backup MY DATA on MY DEVICES is egregious and unconscionable, and arrogant beyond belief.

 

[david68]

This has been an atrocious update that cannot be reversed or downgraded. I travel regularly and have 650Gb and 300k files from customers and projects that I MUST have access to at all times, and be able to Index and Search (impossible with cloud files. Yes, I'm a heavy user.

I have however found a slight 'fix' to this 'offline' debacle. I first did this - 'open a Terminal window and type "ls - alR ~/OneDrive" (or the path to your OneDrive)' and then clicked the Cloud icon of the folder to fix. Then in Finder sitting at an unexpanded OneDrive root folder, press Option/Right Arrow. This fully expands the subfolder tree, and this initially seemed to 'work', in that after a number of hours I finally I got an accurate folder total size.

The only issue - files subsequently copied into the folder are reverted back to 'On Demand'. It seems this is in fact intended behaviour by Microsoft. So no real fix at all.

I well recall when Apple gave the middle finger to Pro a few years back users its Mac range slipped to single figures, my close friend took direct part in subsequent QA discussions and Apple reversed course. My IT company in Melb. AU sold almost 10yrs ago had well over 4k SMB and Mid customers over 25yrs and it's people like those on this forum and I who are the influencers of many - I've been inundated with queries and so far I'm saying sit tight.

That said, I've watched closely the replies above from MS Team @Ankita Kirti @Jack Nichols @gacarini @Carter_MSFT and it seems there is silence on whether 'On Demand' is here to stay, and local or offline files gone. I sincerely hope that's not the case, however if it is then this is moving into Class Action territory and/or Consequential Damages for any prolonged outage or God forbid if data is lost. Not me, but I can fore-see where this might go.

I get it that MS want sticky customers, who doesn't - but this is not the way to do it.!!!

Taking away MY RIGHT to use and backup MY DATA on MY DEVICES is egregious and unconscionable, and arrogant beyond belief.