Announcement: OneDrive Sync Updates
All of us here on the OneDrive Team have been hard at work delivering many of the OneDrive sync client updates we communicated at Ignite to further improve the user experience and administration of syncing files from Office 365. With the holidays rapidly approaching we wanted to give you an update on those enhancements. The best part is the latest OneDrive sync client will automatically update with these new capabilities. If you aren’t running the latest OneDrive sync client, or aren’t sure, you can learn more here. Activity center The activity center is now available in the latest OneDrive sync client on Mac and PC giving you visibility to the most recent sync activity and status. Simply click on the OneDrive icon in your system tray (PC) or Finder (Mac) to see your file sync Conditional access You can now restrict OneDrive sync to only domain joined or workplace joined devices. You can even make access contingent on PC health if you like. All of this can be managed through the new OneDrive admin center preview and by configuring Azure Active Directory policies. Learn more here. Syncing SharePoint sites Making sure you have the information that is critical to you on every device no matter where you are is key to our customers. The ability to sync SharePoint sites directly to OneDrive is one of these features that makes doing this easier and simpler for end users. We’ve had great feedback on the public preview of syncing SharePoint Online document libraries in the latest OneDrive sync client. We remain committed to providing a reliable and performant sync experience for all your Office 365 files and continue to refine the public preview to meet our quality expectations. We’re on target to make this capability generally available in January. Standalone Mac client Ever since we added OneDrive for Business support to the latest sync client, we’ve seen an increase of adoption and interest from the Mac community. However, one of the largest blockers for enterprise deployments is that most admins do not want to utilize the Mac App Store to deploy and distribute software due to its limitations. Today we’re releasing a standalone OneDrive sync client for Mac that you can deploy and manage outside of the Mac App Store. This standalone client also provides sync status visual overlays in Finder, a Finder shortcut for OneDrive, and the ability to set-up OneDrive sync to run at log in. This latest client also has built-in multi-language support. You can get the standalone client for Mac here. As we get ready for 2017, I want to take a moment to wish all of you a healthy and happy new year from the OneDrive/SharePoint teams here in Redmond. We look forward to continuing to bring all of you more great innovation while finding new ways to make you more productive no matter where and how you choose to work. Thank you and happy holidays! Stephen L Rose Director, OneDrive Product Marketing
Windows One Drive shared folder suddenly become shortcut instead of folders
Hi, I am having an issue that I need help with. I have my One Drive account for several years. I have my main account signed in on my laptop. I have 4 other users sharing their folder with edit access to my main account. I add them as short cut to my main account. In the past, on my laptop, they function as folders. Meaning, I can move, delete, add files and they essentially function as a folder. Now, all my shared folder from my other users suddenly becomes short cut. When I open the folder, it brings me to the browser for me to sign in and view them. This never happened before and I am not sure what caused it. Please help. Edit Update: I am able to fix this by logging into One Drive with my other user account. Seems like not all accounts are affected only some. I know its not a fixed but at least a temporary solution. The problem seems to be on Microsoft side and I hope they fixed it soon or else I will be going to Google Drive. Update 2: This issue was ongoing since June 7, 2024. As of today, June 19, 2024 it still has not been fixed. Also, one of the Always on device folder on my laptop start deleting stuff on its own. I had to disble the always on device to get it to stop. Great job Microsoft, the most valueable company in the world. I think I will be moving to Google Drive.My experience with the new OneDrive Team Site Sync
Microsoft announced at Ignite that the new preview OneDrive client would sync full Team Sites, link here: https://blogs.office.com/2016/09/26/sharepoint-online-sync-preview-headlines-ignite-announcements-for-onedrive/ Shortly after this, I got an email from a CEO of one of my clients threatening to do bad things to me if I didn't make his SharePoint repository easier to access via his desktop, so I decided to pilot the new sync client with him. After downloading the new sync client and putting in the reg key, be sure to open the new client at least once so the association with the "Sync" button in Team Sites is made, otherwise OneDrive for Business will continue to be the default app when you press Sync. Once I cleared this hurdle, the Sync button brought up the new client. I was guided through the normal OneDrive wizard of selecting which folders I wanted to sync (useful when you have a 120Gb Team Site). Once done the folders started to fly in to the OneDrive local folder. Some Xs appeared on files and folders with a - (dash), once I renamed them they synced up. When you go to Settings on the new OneDrive app, it now shows all the different doc libraries you have synced and you can reselect which folders you would like to sync. Overall the speed and functionality of the new OneDrive app is excellent, and for those long suffering folks with half solutions making doc libraries accessible on desktops, I'd strongly recommend it.OneDrive Client, Files on Demand and Syncing large libraries
I thought I'd post some observations regarding the OneDrive sync client we've observed that aren't documented anywhere but we needed to figure out when planning a massive move to SharePoint from on-premise file servers: Limits: Microsoft documents that you shouldn't sync more than 300,000 files across all libraries that the client is connected to, but there was no documentation about Files on Demand limits, and we have observed the following: The OneDrive client will fail when the dat file that stores object metadata reaches exactly 2GB in size (%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\settings\Business1). Now, while Microsoft says you shouldn't sync more than 300,000 files, you can connect using files on demand to libraries that contain more than this. The trick here is that in this case, the total number of files and folders matter, lets call them collectively "objects". (Interestingly, when you first connect to a library and the client says "Process changes" and gives you a count, "changes" is the total number of objects in the library that it's bringing down using files on demand and storing in the dat file.) My suspicion is that since the OneDrive client is still 32bit, it's still subject to certain 32bit process restrictions, but I don't really know. What matters in this case is that up until build 19.033.0218.0009 (19.033.0218.0006 insiders build), the client would fill up the dat file and reach the 2GB limit after about 700-800,000 objects. After build 19.033.0218.0009, it appears that the client has been optimized and no longer needs to store quite as much metadata about each object, "increasing" the upper limit of files on demand. (It seems that in general, each object takes up just over 1KB of data in the dat file, putting the limit somewhere just under 2 million objects). Keep in mind, this is not per library, this is across all libraries, including OneDrive for Business (personal storage), SharePoint Document Libraries, etc. Performance: The client has made some significant improvements in performance quickly as they refine each new build, but there are some things to be aware of before you start connecting clients to large libraries: It. takes. forever. The more objects in a library, the longer it's going to take for the client to build it's local cache of files on demand copies of all the items in the library. It seems that in general, the client can process about 50 objects per second, if you were connecting to a library or multiple libraries that had 1.4 million objects, it will take around 8 hours before the client is "caught up". During the time that the content is being built out locally, Windows processes will also consume a large quantity of system resources. Specifically, explorer.exe and the Search Indexer will consume a lot of CPU and disk as they process the data that the client is building out. The more resources you have, the better this experience will be. On a moderately powered brand new Latitude with an i5, 8GB of Memory and an SSD OS Drive, the machine's CPU was pretty heavily taxed (over 80% CPU) for over 8 hours connecting to libraries with around 1.5 million objects. On a much more powerful PC with an i7 and 16GB of memory, the strain was closer to 30% CPU, which wouldn't cripple an end user while they wait for the client and Windows to finish processing data. But, most organizations don't deploy $2000 computers to everyone, so be mindful when planning your Team-Site automount policies. Restarts can be painful. when the OS boots back up OneDrive has to figure out what changed in the libraries in the cloud and compare that to it's local cache. I've seen this process take anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour after restarts, depending on how many objects are in the cache. Also, if you're connected to a large number of objects in the local cache, you can expect OneDrive to routinely use about a third of CPU on an i5 processor trying to keep itself up to date. This doesn't appear to interfere with the overall performance of the client, but it's an expensive process. Hopefully over time this will continue to improve, especially as more organizations like mine move massive amounts of data up into SharePoint and retire on premise file servers. If I had to make a design suggestion or two: - If SharePoint could pre-build a generic metadata file that a client could download on first connection, it would significantly reduce the time it takes to set up a client initially. - Roll the Activity Log into an API that would allow the client to poll for changes since the last restart (this could also significantly improve the performance of migration products, as they wouldn't have to scan every object in a library when performing delta syncs, and would reduce the load on Microsoft's API endpoints when organizations perform mass migrations) - Windows to the best of my knowledge doesn't have a mechanism to track changes on disk, i.e. "what recursively changed in this directory tree in the last x timeframe", if it were possible to do this, Windows and SharePoint could eliminate most of the overhead that the OneDrive client has to shoulder on it's own to keep itself up to date. Speaking to OneDrive engineers at Ignite last year, support for larger libraries is high on their radar, and it's apparent in this latest production release that they are keeping their word on prioritizing iterative improvements for large libraries. If you haven't yet started mass data migrations into SharePoint, I can't stress enough the importance of deeply analyzing your data and understanding what people need access to and structuring your libraries and permissions accordingly. We used PowerBI to analyze our file server content and it was an invaluable tool in our planning. Happy to chat with anyone struggling with similar issues and share what we did to resolve them. Happy SharePointing! P.S., shoutout to the OneDrive Product Team, you guys are doing great, love what you've done with the OneDrive client, but for IT Pros struggling with competing product limits and business requirements, documenting behind the scenes technical data and sharing more of the roadmap would be incredibly valuable in helping our companies adopt or plan to adopt OneDrive and SharePoint.Files On-Demand for macOS QA
Hello there! 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. Two weeks ago, we posted an update about Files On-Demand for macOS and have received overwhelming feedback from the community. We have spent a lot of time reading your comments and concerns to understand how we can improve your experience on macOS. To address some of the common issues and doubts we have updated the blog with a FAQ. If you still have more queries feel free to reach out to the team directly on this thread. Thank you for your constant support and partnership! Team OneDrive Jack_Nichols gacarini Carter_MSFT
Issue with accessing personal vault on OneDrive app post restart
When I opened my onedrive mobile app today the app pushed a message saying that a restart was required. I restarted the app and it told me to set up my personal vault. I've been using my personal vault for several years now so no set up was required. When I logged into my personal vault, all of the files within it were missing. They're available on the online version of onedrive but not in the app version. There's nothing in the recycling bin and there's no recent activity to suggest mass movement/deletion of files. I've restarted the app multiple times, tried with and without wifi, and have tried on different devices - all are showing an empty vault. Has anyone had this problem? Is this a syncing issue or a bug with the new app?Add Shortcut to Files fails
My wife and I have a family Office 365 subscription. I have shared a folder with her with permissions to edit. She gets the email confirming this and can open the link and see the files in the folder. When she clicks "Add shortcut to My files" she gets a message "1 shortcut wasn't added". This happens using Onedrive web (through Edge) and on the Onedrive app on her iPhone. On the iPhone she hit "Add Shortcut to Files" and it says "By addding "Folder Name" to your OneDrive, you can sync it on your computers with other OneDrive files". When she clicks OK it says "Adding" and then comes up with a message "Something went wrong". Any ideas?Learn How OneDrive Sync Works With Office 2016
For years, you have been able to sync your OneDrive (and SharePoint) documents to your PC, which lets you work on the go while still being able to collaborate with others in Office. This integration was powered by the previous generation OneDrive for Business sync client (groove.exe), and we've been working hard to fix issues and improve reliability so the experience is as smooth as possible. With the release of the latest OneDrive sync client (which we refer to as the Next Gen Sync Client or NGSC, we saw an opportunity make the Office sync experience better than ever. We've now delivered a new integration which combines the rock-solid performance and reliability of OneDrive with the advanced collaboration features of Office 2016. Here's a summary of how the latest OneDrive sync works differently from both competitors and from our previous sync client (groove.exe): Office files always open from the locally synced file first If a document is synced to your machine, Office will never wait to open the server copy. Office opens the locally synced file immediately, and if there are any changes on the server, Office will download those asynchronously. This allows you to open under any network conditions without waiting and is a big advantage over other sync and share services. Due to the partnership between OneDrive and Office, it doesn't matter if the file was opened from Recent Files, File Explorer, clicking a URL, etc. If the file is synced to the device, the synced file opens first. Office files always save to the locally synced file first Similar to how Office opens files, saves start with the locally synced file. After the file saves, Office will upload changes directly to the server. If Office can't upload because the device is offline, you can keep working offline or close the file. Office will continue to save to the locally synced file, and OneDrive will handle the upload once the device gets back online. In this integration, Office works directly with the files that are currently open, enabling co-authoring in Office apps like Word on the desktop, which no competitor offers. For files that are not open in Office, OneDrive handles all syncing. This is the key difference between the old sync client integration and the NGSC, and this lets us achieve co-authoring along with the best performance and sync reliability. Office uploads are efficient Since the release of Office 2010, files are uploaded to OneDrive via the MS-FSSHTTP protocol. This lets Office avoid uploading the entire file on every save if only a small part has changed. For example, if a PowerPoint presentation has a large video in it, that video won’t be re-uploaded on each save. It is much more efficient than a full file upload, and it again speaks to the tight interoperability between Office and OneDrive. Conflict Resolution Some conflicts are unavoidable, and OneDrive gives you control over how these conflicts get resolved. If Office 2016 is not installed, OneDrive will create a second file with the user’s conflicting copy after detecting a conflict. If Office 2016 is installed, users have the option to “Open in Office” to resolve the conflict. This will either automatically merge the conflicting copies or show a merge experience that lets users pick the right version of each conflicting change. Users can choose to duplicate the file instead, or they can disable the “Open in Office” option entirely in the OneDrive settings. Summary Office 2016 and OneDrive work seamlessly together to keep your files in sync while letting you easily collaborate on your documents and share them with others. This integration provides dramatically improved performance and reliability without sacrificing advanced collaboration features like real-time co-authoring. Now you have a single tool to sync all your OneDrive and SharePoint Online content with the best integration with Office, great performance, and rock-solid sync. Availability Office integration with the OneDrive Next Generation Sync Client is available now for all Windows releases of Office 2016, and it works for all modern Office document formats (docx, xlsx, pptx, etc) synced by the Next Gen Sync Client. We’re also working to bring this experience to Office 2016 for Mac, though we don’t have a release date to share at this time. Office integration with NGSC Teamsite sync requires click-to-run build 16.0.7167.2001+ or MSI build 16.0.4432.1000+ Eric O'Brien- Program Manager- OneDrive
