OneDrive – Shared folders can no longer sync locally since yesterday

Ian,

as you know this issue was already reported around a year ago and a few weeks ago it started causing issues on PCs of several users I am sharing folders with.

It also seems to mess up the calculation of used cloud storage. I got the warning that the folders I share have reached the limit and OneDrive stopped synching. But I am using only 40% of my total storage capacity.

Another user having access to my shared folders gets the warning now that his cloud storage is full although only arond 60% are used.

We also tried fixing the issue by adding the shared folder as network drive but it does not work.

The complete cooperation set up for different users is useless now. The Microsoft team also does not seem to understand that not all people are sitting in an office with perfect internet connection all day. People traveling or having meetings with customers may have very slow or even no internet access and therefore no access to these folders.

I am also working with shared folders from Box, Dropbox, Google, etc, no issues with synching data to local PCs at all, Perhaps Microsoft should hire some developers from them :-)

My only option is setting up my own cloud service with 2 NAS systems in different offices, give people remote access and sync files to OneDrive for additional backup. Back to where he had been many years ago.

Best

Hannes

Where do I track it? How do I know when it's fixed? Currently, I have to disable OneDrive completely as it is reuploading my previously synced files consuming my internet bandwidth.

Can you please define "certain period of time"?

I regret to see this event unfold, but I have seen before how a problem is handled by Microsoft, such as this onea few years back about tags in OneDrive. It appeared that the ability to create tags for photos in OneDrive suddenly disappeared. Moderators chimed in as well as people relaying results from calling Microsoft that "they are aware of the issue," that "engineers were deployed," that "Microsoft understands the concern," and that "the problem would be soon resolved." It never happened. I recommended to people that for those where tags were important, to pick a date (I suggested the start of the next month from my comment) where if it was not resolved, to find another service or in-house solution. That day came and went, and no solution at the time was provided. I checked in 6mo later and still no solution.

Microsoft is a large company with vast resources and intelligent people. Professional development goes through a development environment, then testing and finally provisions for rollback. They would not deploy a change to the entire user population in one go. If they didn't follow due process, then you would wonder if you should rely on them in the future for your cloud storage.

This sort of thing is unlikely to happen by chance. Dropbox has been shared cloud files on the desktop without flaw, and I'm sure it is a simple thing that Microsoft can handle. I wonder if this is how they get people either to stop using the feature to free up their resources or to pay a premium without having to announce it. We just renewed our M365 subscription for a 38% increase (CPI here was 2.4% for 2024) and today received a notice telling us Skype calls and Publisher are being cancelled (so reduced value) and now no more inclusion of shared folders with File Explorer.

I would recommend you adopt the same approach that I recommended with the tags issue. Pick a date after which you will search for a new service and move your files. You could wait indefinitely, wasting time. The longer it goes, the more solid the demonstration that your files are in an unreliable place if they don't follow best practices. (It's a shared folder this time—what's next?) For some, this is not too critical, so they'll wait a couple months; others need this now and will pick the end of the month at most.

I have to now deal with a client who just signed up their business and asks me for help with secure file storage. What do I tell them?

I am experiencing the same issue. Both on macOS and Windows 11. This is breaking my workflow.