MacOS Monterey - Disable Files on Demand

[pdteo]

I use OneDrive to synch all my files with another computer at work and just upgraded to Monterey. I need to be able to search for data in the files using Spotlight/Quick Look etc. so I typically do a full sync and disable files on demand.

Since this is no longer an option with Monterey, I have instead enabled "Always Keep On This Device" from the OneDrive root folder. However, I am now seeing files that are both "Always Available on this Device" and "Not Downloaded". Aren't these two mutually exclusive?

Is there any way to disable Files on demand?

MacOS is 12.1

OneDrive is Version 21.245.1128.0002 (Standalone) with Insider Preview Updates enabled

Thanks.

[#2]

@ruileal   I get the same error message.

I am totally confused by this. 

The capacity of my hard disk on my iMac is 2.12TB and I only have 800GB free - which is about right as up until all these problems, my iMac was the only computer I own where i chose to keep files locally (although I use TimeMachine and do monthly drive images using Carbon Copy Cloner onto an physical hard disk).

So I do have a lot of physical content on my machine but most of my subfolders in OneDrive display the 'cloud/Arrow' icon as do the files within those folders - which I guess means that they are not physical on the iMac.  So are they on the machine (which disc usage indicates) or not on my machine (as indicated by the icons)? 

+ Selecting 'always keep on this device' does not change the status of the icon and clicking on the icon on the parent OneDrive folder (or one of its second lever sub folders) does not download all the content below it.  It only seems to work at the folder level. for me.   Am i doing something wrong?

Finally see below.  On my iMac (pic 1) OneDrive is version 22.002.0103.004 and on my MacBook Air (pic 2) Onedrive is 21.230.1206.004.  Both are running Monterey 12.2.  The Air is working fine, is there anyway of downgrading OneDrive on the iMac so I can get on with life?    

Not sure if this is a Microsoft or Apple problem, but it stinks! 

[#3]

 I can't have only on demand as sometimes I am with slow internet connection. Is the only option leaving One Drive and moving to Drop Box or iCloud? Is there any real option of disabling One Drive files on demand? 

[#4]

I does stink indeed.

[#5]

Sorry, I haven't edited a plist file before. I looked around online about how to do it, and found some stuff about it. Would "defaults write com.microsoft.OneDrive FilesOnDemandEnabled false" be what I need to put into Terminal, or am I doing it wrong? I find the lack of an option to turn this off in the client extremely annoying.

[#6]

@Ryland301 - what do we know, we are only the user/customer.  I have mow synchronised every folder I'm my OneDrive and selected 'always keep on this device' but have found if I add a new file to a folder, it does not work and have to synchronise it manually.  I do think this is a bug rather than the way Microsoft/Apple want this to work otherwise why would the 'always keep on this device' be an option?

[#7]

@garylynch 

I ended up moving to iCloud yesterday. I couldn't find any other solution online. I want my files on my computer and to back them up with my time machine. So far iCloud works fine for me. It took some work to make the move. I started it in the evening, so it was running when I was not active anyway. 

[#8]

@Yann Gourvennec 

It definitely stinks functionally as you point out.

My main beef is about an even more troublesome issue:  The update took all my local files, 250GB worth, and made them inaccessible locally without internet.  This is my job-related content that I use regularly across 3 computers, and poof, I can't see it/find it on my hard drives anymore.  When I need to work without access to the internet or with a poor connection (regularly), I am disabled.  And the download option is glitchy and presumes I know at any moment exactly which files I need.  I routinely pull information from previously created content --- only in the moment might it occur to me what I need.

Why the community was not warned about this so users like me could physically move their content out of their OneDrive-mapped folder is beyond comprehension.  Microsoft does not own my content, and they have now severely limit my seamless access to what I own.

[#9]

You are correct, it's really poor from MS. As I am in a mixed PC/Mac environment OneDrive used to work for me extremely well, especially as we use MS Office. iCloud is OK, but expensive and pretty hostile to PC users, Fortunately I have very fast internet so downloading all my content again only took a day - but that really isn't the point is it?

[#10]

I seem to have found a solution to at least a part of this.
Starting point: a Mac machine that had to be taken out of "Files on Demand" mode, and the option to do so disappeared from the systray menu. Marking all folders in OneDrive as 'local' changed their onedrive icon, but DID NOT result in actual download of Files to the local machine.
BUT: the extra onedrive icon has appeared in finder (cloud + down arrow with "waiting for download" tooltip. AFTER (double)CLICKING THIS ICON for each of the key folders it changed to a "progress pie chart" (think: itunes track download), the tooltip changed to "downloading" and the hard drive stats indicate that the files are being, in fact, downloaded.
As this seems to be a new (confusing) UI for local files and not a hack, I am hoping it will result in local copies of Files updated or uploaded form other machines to these folders, but can't confirm yet.
Please note, the os language on the machine in question is not EN so the exact wording might be off.
Hope that helps somebody, cheers P

[#11]

I updated OD on my M1 MackBook yesterday and discovered the above problem today. However I updated Monterey to V12.2 a couple of days before so I don’t know if this is an Apple or MS issue. Because the option to NOT use files On-Demand is no longer in OD preferences my bet would be it‘s an MS issue. I do know that even though there is a little cloud beside each folder and file in Finder the files are actually still on the hard drive. When I clicked on the cloud in the highest level OD folder OD started to “download” all the files, in fact it was just recognising them as there already because the operation took a couple of minutes instead of the couple of hours a full download would have taken. So, I am safely back to where I was pre-updates.

As and old mainframe sysprog I can only say no matter how wonderful one may think  the cloud is, always keep up to date physical backups. :)

[#12]

@TAIngalls Thanks! your MD5 trick worked for me to fix the two icons issue, but it takes a long time to run.  Do you know of another command that could do the same thing but a bit faster?  I have 150 Gb of small (node.js etc) files to get through.

[#13]

@S_Fitzgerald 

The first time that you run the find with md5 it will take quite a long time.  After the first long run you should be able to run the following that only scans items modified within the last day.  I did see that someone else ran "head -n 1" instead to only read the first line of each file.  I chose to go with md5 since I wasn't sure if something like the head command would have issues with binary files or not.

find /Users/USERNAME/OneDrive/ -type f -newermt $(date -v -1d +'%Y-%m-%d') -exec md5 '{}' \;

[#14]

Thanks, that sounds like a good approach until MS fixes this, or I find another cloud sync service.

[#15]

@TAIngalls this worked perfectly for me, no issues with binary files and quite fast:

find . -type f -exec head -c 1 {} \;

[#16]

@JCS-DragiB You all seem to be overthinking this. It”s not a problem and easly fixed. 

[#17]

I managed to finally enable work collaboration and autosave file for office apps. While having some file on files on demand and most files offline.

I uninstalled the OneDrive app from the App store, and Downloaded the OneDrive App from the Microsoft website.

It was so frustrating not having files to sync in real-time and have them available offline at the same time. Things worked great until the Monterey update yesterday.

So, I lost a lot of time being frustrated in finding fix. Until I simply reinstalled the app and deleted all my offline files.

Now it's working fine. The icons are still grey but it's working well so far. I have to wait though for tons of files to be back offline, and hopefully no more bugs will occur.

[#18]

Thanks for this, this is what I found too. Only remaining problem I found is that new files don't seem to be downloaded by default (as in the past) even when you select "Always Keep on This Device" for the folder that contains it. If this is what MS wanted, then I think it's a bug.

[#19]

This makes sense, if you have had to re-install OneDrive in the past (as I have many times) then it does not delete the physical files on your machine (although it looks like they are not stored locally because of the icon). Once you have re-installed OneDrive it will sync up the files. I have to say what every the rights or wrongs of this new approach it only seems for the Mac and not the PC (why?) and (as usual) the way MS have rolled this out is appalling!

[#20]

Do share the solution please

[#21]

For me reinstalling did last in a "sorry, onedrive can't add your folder right now"-error. I had to reinstall the previous version.
This is a real pain because it disturbes any workflow: All my tags (and I rely on them) are gone, although I chose the „keep always on drive"-option there is always some delay and it seems that every file has to be downloaded. The preview-function doesn't work. This is pretty useless.