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

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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
    2025-03-08T19:55:22+00:00

    Friend, I have the same problem, my desktop did it but my laptop is still working as usual… I even bought a new hard drive and installed Windows 11 from scratch, I also reinstalled OneDrive and it didn’t solve it.

    So I tried a different approach: I downloaded Google Drive for PC and shared my folders on it, YES to Google Drive directly from OneDrive, so I created a shared link in file explorer to the Google Drive directory and VOILA! in file explorer I double click on the Google Drive icon and I can access there the OneDrive folders ... from file explorer, I can use my files as usual, save them, delete them, etc. and on my laptop, the one that never failed with OneDrive, I can see the changes I made perfectly normal and up to date.

    It’s like using Google Drive as an "interface" to deal with OneDrive, and it’s working!

    I think I’m buying some time for Microsoft to fix it… someday.

    If the problem persists in OneDrive, I will consider switching to Google Drive for good.

    I hope this works for you as it did for me.

    Best regards!

    Important note: If your files don't fit in the free version of Google Drive (it's only 15 gigabytes), you can share only the directories you use regularly, to keep it small, not all your content, and from time to time, when necessary, manually copy or move directories and files that you won't be using for a while, and bring in others that you need to work on.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-03-08T19:34:56+00:00

    For anyone still having this issues, there IS a good workaround. I think it was posted earlier in this chain but lost in the noise. It is described in another shorter thread here:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/windows-one-drive-shared-folder-suddenly-become/22b4df36-be15-44f9-a922-5165418a1d3d

    However, note that on the 5th bullet, many users will find that your 'usual' password fails. Instead you will need to generate a one-time 'App Password' and use that - see https://account.live.com/proofs/AppPassword  (you don't need to store this password anywhere - just use it once for the connection then forget)

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-03-08T19:18:36+00:00

    Problem suddenly solved for me, too!

    Without doing anything the shared folders are local accessible again on my two devices with Build 25.020.0202.0001 (64-Bit) + Build 25.015.0126.0002 (64-Bit).

    The locally installed version of the OneDrive client has no impact.

    When the issue started for me 7 days ago, one PC was on the "Insider" version of OneDrive (because this is connected to the Insider status I have in Office 365), that's why I first suspected a bug in this new version. I manually went back to an old 2024 version, which did not make any difference.

    Then I saw that my second computer has the same issue, and it is on the currently rolled out standard productive version.

    This also makes sense, because these Internet shortcuts are (wrongly) created on the server side of OneDrive, and then are just applied by the OneDrive client, regardless what version it is.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-03-08T19:12:04+00:00

    Are you really going to fix it and when????

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