One Mac, multiple OneDrive accounts?

[Gary_Schiltz]

One Mac, multiple OneDrive Business Premium accounts?

I'm hoping someone can give me a definitive answer to the following.
 
My nonprofit organization has 10 licenses for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, generously donated by Microsoft. As a normal user of the software and the account's cloud storage, I can login to the service as gary(at)myorg... and sync my OneDrive files to my Mac. I'm also the unpaid IT guy (for the moment), but if I am replaced someday, I want to maintain continuity by just turning the account over to them. So I have a separate account itadmin(at)myorg... that I login to in order to access files that apply to IT activities. If I stick to the web interface, I can have two browser profiles (in Chrome, but it probably would work with Edge or Firefox as well), one logged in as gary, and the other profile logged in as itadmin, and edit the files, drag and drop them from my desktop, etc to the browser representing the logged in user. I was hoping to be able to do the same with OneDrive, but I get tons of errors after signing into the second account. I tried this perhaps a year ago, and finally give up. I was hoping the problem would have been fixed by now, but the errors seem more or less the same as then.
 
So, the question is: should I be able to login to two separate MS 365 Business Premium accounts in a single OneDrive installation and have it sync both of the accounts (to different folders)? If I should be able to, then I might investigate further; otherwise, I'll just continue using the browser interface.
 
Gary Schiltz
Mindo Cloudforest Foundation
Ecuador

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Gary_Schiltz,

it isn't officially supported by Microsoft to sync multiple OneDrive Business Premium accounts to a single OneDrive installation on a Mac, but you can try this as a workaround:

1. Install OneDrive App

2. Sign in to the First Account: sign in using the credentials of the first account (gary(at)myorg...). Set up the sync preferences and choose the folders you want to sync.

3. Create a New User Profile: create a new user profile for the second OneDrive account (itadmin(at)myorg...).
- Go to "System Preferences" > "Users & Groups".
- Click the lock icon and enter your password to make changes.
- Click the "+" button to create a new user profile.
- Follow the prompts to set up the new profile.

4. Switch to the New User Profile: Log out of your current user profile and log in to the new user profile.

5. Install OneDrive App for the Second Account: In the new user profile, install the OneDrive app and sign in using the credentials of the second account (itadmin(at)myorg...).

You will then have separate user profiles on your Mac, each with own OneDrive app and associated account. This allows you to sync files from both accounts separately.

This include workaround switching between user profiles to access different OneDrive accounts.

It may not be as good as having both accounts synced within a single user profile, but it provides a way to access files from multiple accounts on the same Mac.

Please click Mark as Best Response & Like if my post helped you to solve your issue. This will help others to find the correct solution easily. It also closes the item. If the post was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Like.

Kindest regards

Leon Pavesic

[#3]

Thanks Leon! Your answer is the first time I've found someone who seems to know whether or not it is not officially supported. I would think this would be a fairly common thing, at least enough for the official MS 365 documentation to mention it. I'm a complete novice when it comes to Microsoft's ecosystems.

[#4]

Hi Gary,
just another idea.
You can always give access to your OneDrive to other Users, so they would be able to add a shortcut to their OneDrive of the files you stored in your OneDrive.
But be aware if you leave the company and your account is deleted so will be your OneDrive will all files you stored.
Therefore, I would strongly suggest creating a SharePoint SiteCollection with a Library to store important information there. All the Files can also be synced with the OneDrive Client. Also, it's easy to share the SiteCollection or a Folder / File with certain users.
Hope this helps!

[#5]

@Gary_Schiltz 

Hi Gary,

Came across your post and thought I'd post my solution.

My use case may be different and given you are a Mac user and IT Pro, I'd thought its worth mentioning something no one else has.

Really all the 1D accounts are in a personal context is storage on a MS server, so treat accesss to that in any manner you would a remote server - some form of FTP from some form of cloud type.

I use Cyberduck because it has never failed me AND it's licensing model is simple.

https://cyberduck.io/

Also has MANY profiles that allow simple connection to growing servers. Just supply the credentials asked for.

HTH,

Steve

[#6]

I'm afraid I don't understand much about remote storage of files on MS 365, epecially the relationship between OneDrive and SharePoint. (I said that I'm the volunteer IT guy - I probably should have clarified by saying that I'm a retired, Microsoft-illiterate techie - mainly Mac and Linux - trying to bring some order to the chaos that is the IT infrastructure, or lack thereof, of the nonprofit I'm helping). I get the feeling SharePoint is sort of the "business" interface to Microsoft's storage, whereas OneDrive is sort of a simplified veneer overlaying SharePoint, oriented to home users. Is that essentially correct?

It looks like Cyber Duck a super duper FTP client, and maybe more. It looks to me like their Mountain Duck software is closer to what was hoping to use OneDrive for, i.e. to locally mount the MS-hosted drives of multiple MS 365 users, and be able to show all the remote directories and files locally, as either links (for downloading on demaind) or cached local copies that stay synchronized between local and remote.

Would you clarify how you use Cyber Duck and/or Mountain Duck?

Thanks,
Gary

[#7]

By the way, logging into and out of two separate Mac accounts might work, but is a clunkier solution than I was looking for :)