OneDrive shared folders are now links, not folders! How do I fix this?

Anonymous
2025-03-04T11:55:09+00:00

I have a number of folders shared with me by other OneDrive users. I've added these to My Files to appear alongside the folders on my OneDrive account. Up until yesterday, they appeared as folders on my PC, alongside the other folders which belong to my OneDrive account. Now these folders that are shared with me are appearing as shortcut links instead of folders on my PC.

This has happened to 3 different PCs which are all connected to the same OneDrive account. I have uninstalled OneDrive, cleared the cache, etc. and reinstalled on one PC, but the problem remains. I've removed shared folders, had them unshared by the owner, reshared back to me, and then added again to My Files, but this didn't work either.

How do I fix 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.

0 comments

89 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2025-05-02T07:34:59+00:00

    I'm pleased to report my OneDrive is now fixed. Hopefully the same will be true for everyone else soon.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-03T10:26:04+00:00

    I'm pleased to report my OneDrive is now fixed. Hopefully the same will be true for everyone else soon.

    At the start of the issue, the system created a duplicate folder named after the computer attempting to sync the shared folder. How was this resolved? Were the folders merged, or was the duplicate removed?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2025-05-03T11:18:11+00:00

    Did you actively take any steps on any of the shared accounts or they just reverted back to proper synched folders? None of ours are working.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-03T14:12:12+00:00

    After a couple weeks of this issue, mine has started working again. OneDrive still contains those extra folders that were added when this problem came up. And they contain literally thousands of files in a folder that came from the computers sharing their folders. I'm not sure how or why it has started working again. I am hesitant to delete those new folders even though they are taking up considerable OneDrive space. Overall I am very disappointed in how Microsoft has addressed this issue with absolutely no correspondence explaining how or why this issue persists. Makes me very skeptical of relying on OneDrive ever again. I will for sure be looking at alternate storage solutions.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2025-05-03T15:15:24+00:00

    Hi Dan

    I had the same problem and, one account at a time, it seems to return to normalilty... a bit too slow but, wow, I hope I will forget this ****. I had the same doubt as you: to solve it I did a comparison of the folders. Example, the FOLDERA folder on my computer called NUC16 and I had:

    • FOLDERA (the folder that just restored)
    • FOLDERA_NUC16 (the folder that was "left" phisically synchronized)

    I used FreeFileSync to compare only date/size: I saw that there were only a part of the files (about 20%) and that they matched in modify date and size. So I deleted the FOLDERA_NUC16 folder.

    Remember that the remnants of the folder are only there because you decided, as I did, to physically synchronize the files and have them available offline: what is missing is because it was not synchronized (and they were available only with internet connection).

    hope this helps, bye

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments