Downloading copies of files when clicking link from MS Search

[mjiverson]

Hi @Wendy_MSFT and @Bill Baer I'm loving MS Search and trying to get everyone at my company using it, but I recently discovered that when I click on a link to a file, sometimes it downloads a copy of the file (bad) and sometimes it opens the file in the cloud (good). This is hindering my attempts to persuade folks to use it. Can you explain why its's doing this? What am I missing? Thanks!

[#2]

I've been experimenting with this @mjiverson. It appears to be an issue with how URLs are generated in SharePoint and OneDrive. For example, I've noticed that if you send a link from Outlook for Mac it's not the same as a modern attachment on a PC. The Mac version sends the direct URL to the file. When I put that URL in a browser, it also downloads a copy.

The direct file URL is formatted like this tenant-my.sharepoint.com/personal/user_domain/documents/filename…, but when you are viewing a file in the browser, the URL changes and has the sourcedoc and then the file GUID.

Microsoft Search in Bing is doing the same thing--showing the direct link to the file, hence the download. What I haven't figured out is why when I send the direct link to someone else it seems to open the file for them (I'm guessing because they aren't the owner) but it sends them into the desktop version of the app instead of the browser.