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
    2025-05-22T06:47:14+00:00

    What do I know really? But as far as I can make out, there appear to be two (or more) back ends to the one drive system. Different clouds, if you will. Microsoft has some sort of process going on of moving users from one cloud to another. That might all be fine, but file sharing functionality is restricted for users who are on different clouds.

    There doesn't seem to be any way of knowing which cloud you are on, or when you will be moving from one cloud to another. But when either you or somebody who has shared files with you are moved to a different cloud, shared files that you are accessing through file explorer are secretly deleted from your local hard drive and you are only able to access them by downloading them individually over the internet on a case by case basis.

    You may also lose files completely in the transfer process.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-22T06:37:36+00:00

    Scary is an appropriate word here.

    The syncing process you describe took several days on one of my machines. As far as I can see, after that sync completed, it synced back to the cloud - deleting in the process work that I had done on other machines in the interim.

    I've rebuilt my lost work now, but it was an awful chore.

    Maybe I've just been unlucky, but my experience in terms of file syncing has been bad.

    And microsoft keeps telling me how great it is to back my files up to the cloud.

    From day one of this issue, when it deleted all the local copies of shared files from my hard drive without telling me to the latest experience of just losing a few days work in the syncing process... I don't feel my files are safe with Microsoft anymore. Sorry Microsoft.

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