OneDrive: Shared folders are only available via internet shortcut

Three clients with the same problem. The files erased from their local copy. Link to web that gives an error. Hours dedicated to try to fix the issue. We already moved to DropBox all of them. The good part is that the next one we will no try at all any fix. To DropBox directly.

I can't believe that a company like Microsoft is unable to solve a bug in such a critical app as OneDrive.

This seems to be the main thread for the bug/behaviour change.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/folders-shared-with-me-are-syncing-as-internet/6abc9383-6072-4562-b4fa-370c4ea8ce49 

It's been going on for a couple of months, which suggests it is an experiment or behaviour change as a bug could have been fixed by rolling it back in a matter of days.

I am experiencing the same issue. Shared folders in OneDrive are only appearing as internet shortcuts instead of actual folders in File Explorer. I have tried removing and re-adding the shared folder, reinstalling OneDrive, but the problem persists.

Has anyone found a workaround or any official response from Microsoft regarding this?

UPDATE:

I have encountered a problem with OneDrive shared folder synchronization related to the type of email used to create the Microsoft account. If the owner of the shared folder is using a Microsoft account created with a Gmail email address, the shared folder appears as an internet shortcut instead of a fully synced folder in File Explorer for the recipients. However, if the owner of the folder is using a Microsoft account created with an Outlook.com email address, the issue does not occur, and shared folders sync correctly as expected.

This seems to be a significant inconsistency in how OneDrive handles shared folder synchronization based on the owner’s account type. Microsoft should look into this issue and provide a solution to ensure consistent behavior across all Microsoft accounts.

We have the exact same setup as a family, plus that I use cryptomator to only upload encrypted files to the cloud. So accessing the files via the browser is 100% impossible.

6 months of not responding to this critical issue is truly shameful for Microsoft and smells of monopolist behavior.

Hello, Reception Skyway Park

Thanks for raising your concerns in Microsoft Community.

We are aware of the issue and are working on resolving it. The url files will automatically convert back to folders when the issue is resolved. For now, we recommend accessing shared folders that are in this state on OneDrive.com.

Please refer to this information here:

Add and sync shared folders to OneDrive for home - Microsoft Support

Warm Regards,

Mia | Microsoft Community Support Specialist