Folders Shared with me are syncing as internet shortcut in OneDrive on Windows PC

Anonymous
2024-06-08T04:53:55+00:00

Hi. I had some folders shared from different users in my OneDrive account. I had added the folders to my OneDrive with Add Shortcut to OneDrive button from Shared folders in cloud. The account is logged into a windows pc and every files including the folders shared with my were syncing fine until yesterday. Yesterday night the shared folders were completely removed from the Windows pc and folders are replaced with internet shortcut. This is such a big mess. I have tried unlinking the account and linking it back, changing the location of OneDrive on my windows pc and tried to get a new folder shared to my account and adding it to OneDrive. Nothing works so far. OneDrive has a big part in my daily activities. Please help me resolve this.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2025-03-13T06:07:22+00:00

Here is the statement from the Microsoft OneDrive product group (Redmond USA) about the OneDrive Personal problem:

***This is related to a backend migration we are doing and unfortunately, we don’t fully support syncing shared folders in the case where one user has migrated and the other has not. We’re doing everything possible to accelerate things so that it can be resolved as soon as possible for users of the feature. When the accounts are migrated, there is automated logic that makes them go back to a syncing folder within several days.***I have heard, that shared Folder issue is gone.
The best thing is: WAIT and do nothing

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-07-01T19:10:42+00:00

    Agreed the code to migrate once developed and proven does not change.

    However the volume of data which must be copied and verified must be vast, especially as this has taken over a year before this thread has quietened down.

    Hi Mike,

    The issue here is not how many users run Windows, or even the sub-set of those that use OneDrive or the total volume of data to be migrated. The issue is the length of time between the first member and last member in the same share group.

    Example: You and I do not share any folders, so the migration status of you or any the people you share has no impact on me. i.e. if all of my group are running V1.0 and all of your group are running V1.0, V2.0 or mixed, I'm not impacted.

    If all of your group moved from V1.0 to V2.0 on the same day, your group would be impacted for 1 day, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

    I'm part of a group of 3, member #1 got migrated from v1.0 to V2.0 in earlier March 2025, now we are all impacted. Then member #2 got migrated and member #1 and #2 start getting their shares working again. I as member #3 still was not migrated by the end of April and so unable to share with the rest of my group. I couldn't wait any longer, so I created member #4 and manually copied all the data from member #3 to member #4. It took me about a days work to setup and migrate everything (the same day it would have taken Microsoft). I have been using the profile of member #4 ever since, the active members of the group are all on V2.0 and life is back to normal.

    Member #3 on the other hand, has a few small files left, like less than 20mb and it still has not been migrated 4+ months later.

    From the comments made my others, it seems to me, there is a "primary" member of the group (with many files/GBs) and 1 or more members that have a local share from the primary. It seems that Microsoft is migrating all the "small" members first and leaving the bigger "primary" members for weeks/months/years and it's this gap that is creating the grief for everyone.

    With good planning and good coding, in my view, Microsoft should have identified all the members of the group, then migrated the primary member first (this won't take months, hours to days depending on their size), then all the small users, that primarily have a share. Perhaps all members could be migrated simultaneously, still we are taking hours/days of impact to the group. Perhaps with minimal/calculated impact, they could have multiple groups migrating at one time, BUT they should never start on a new group (beyond their performance capability) until they have completed the groups they have already started.

    My member #3 has been left on V1.0 (with almost no files), an unfinished group and they continue to start working on more and more new groups. Their lack of planning and good code has left, likely100's of thousands of groups with just one member not migrated. It seems like pure luck that Microsoft completed the last member of a group, with no indication when the first and last member will be migrated.

    I would think it is technically possible for Microsoft to put a pause on starting any new group, giving themselves some time to complete all the groups they have already started on. All the groups left on V1,0 and those already migrated to V2.0 will not be impacted by the pause, but the mixed groups will all have a priority put on them to complete. While they are waiting for the existing groups to complete, they could be building new code to put a priority on completing a group before taking on too many new groups.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-07-02T01:10:02+00:00

    Just an update: main account finally got migrated yesterday to the new server (to check, open Onedrive on your browser, then go to Onedrive settings and click on "Options". Should not have "Search" in the list of options. Will wait and see if SharedFolders-turned-weblinks will be restored to actual folders again in Onedrive Desktop app.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-07-02T04:41:16+00:00

    Some syncing issues also happening on iOS versions of Microsoft applications (OneDrive, M365 Copilot, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), I've detailed these as best I could.

    Issues crippling iOS Microsoft apps

    So far only the Documents appearing as LiveFolders has been fixed, would love to see the rest fixed up so I can work completely on iPad again.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-07-02T08:27:26+00:00

    "You must work for Microsoft" - I wish I did :-)

    I was a little bit apprehensive about quoting a two and a half year old article, but it was the most up to date I could find.

    I used that to get a guess of the number of windows installations, not as an excuse.

    Yes MS should have devised a better solution to fix what they had broken which did not take OVER a year to implement and it sounds like it's still ongoing.

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