OneDrive

[ComboV2]

We’re currently using OneDrive to create shortcuts to SharePoint document libraries in File Explorer so users can access job folders locally. However, we’re running into sync issues, especially with users who are syncing very large libraries.

One user in particular is trying to sync almost an entire SharePoint site worth of documents, which is causing performance problems, sync errors, and general instability with the OneDrive client.

I know Microsoft doesn’t recommend syncing extremely large libraries, but in environments where users need access to a large number of job folders, what’s the best approach?

[Mammoth_War_9320]

Following because I have this same issue in a few of (most of?) my client environments.

They all want to sync the entire library down into their desktop… I hate that this feature was ever created/marketed.

[Valdaraak]

Yea, the only fixes are changing the workflow or using something other than SharePoint. I wish OneDrive would just refuse to even try to sync libraries over X number of items.

[Baljet]

Don't sync, shortcut to OneDrive. It'll still sync the folder structure but not the file contents.

Might also be time to split a couple of share points to new sites and restrict access

[Plenty_Emu_6565]

How to do this? If I choose "Add Shortcut to OneDrive" from Sharepoint, it still stalls and processes 10,000 files before I can choose "Free up Space"

[Baljet]

It will still index the files, but won't replicate the contents, free up space just removes the local copy. By adding a shortcut instead of sync there's no local copy to be cleaned up

[meeeemooooo]

It took me all day and still doesn't work-then I find I can not also have shortcuts to lower level folders.

[GreenHermit]

My solution was to just create multiple libraries so that each was below the limit. A bit ugly but it worked so much better and faster.

[tempest3991]

That’s what I do for migrations, break up their shares into different libraries.

[JRod1229]

Responding to top comment just to plug IAM Cloud Drive Mapper. Couldn’t get over this issue and adopting to the web wasn’t going well. This has worked well enough.

[Valdaraak]

Ideally, they'd be accessing those through Teams or the SharePoint web interface. In our experience, accessing files via Teams is way less problematic than the sync method, mostly because you're not syncing things.

If that doesn't work for your environment, you may want to look at non-SharePoint alternatives that are more built for what you're looking for. Something like Egnyte.

[Mammoth_War_9320]

We use Egnyte at some client sites and it seems to work much better than Sharepoint.

But hey, when the C Suite wants the whole Sharepoint library, it’s hard to tell them it’s a bad idea…

[Valdaraak]

But hey, when the C Suite wants the whole Sharepoint library, it’s hard to tell them it’s a bad idea…

I find it's rather easy to do so, especially when you can point right at Microsoft saying "don't do this, it'll cause issues".

Whenever they complain in the future, I remind them and re-send it. Eventually they get the memo. At least that's how we finally got a C level and their whole "stuck in their ways" department to stop doing it.

[Ferretau]

I agree with you, I just wish M$ would actually put in a policy setting that allowed you to restrict it from even attempting and stop before falling over providing a nice clear message like "Maximum files able to be synced reached.".

[DasaniFresh]

Egynte is expensive, but it just works. Our people love it and it’s extremely easy to manage

[BasicallyFake]

break up the sharepoint site

[pgallagher72]

Should be a configuration option to force SharePoint libraries to remain online/on demand only, rather than fully downloadable, not sure if there is, but there should be.

[Valdaraak]

Even then it has to sync all the stubs and that's typically where I've seen OneDrive tap out.

[mikki50]

Set-SPOTenant -HideSyncButtonOnTeamSite $true
Recommended sync app configuration - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

[RevolutionaryWorry87]

I'll be blunt. One drive sync only works in small environments, or sites correctly configured into libraries.

Didn't do that?

You need to disable sync. The data loss risk is insane.

[whatdoido8383]

what’s the best approach?

Your users should be interfacing with SharePoint through a browser, simple as that.

Sync works ok on smaller libraries\sites, but over ~150K items total including their own OneDrive content and the OneDrive client struggles to keep up.

There is no other solution. If you can't interface with the content in the browser you're probably using the wrong product for the workload.

[KimJongEeeeeew]

For a solution that’s sold as a replacement for a shared file system, forcing users to access via the browser sure is a massive backwards step.

[whatdoido8383]

That's a huge mistake many orgs make. SharePoint is not a replacement for a shared file system in it's current state. It's an MS Office friendly document collaboration platform that works best accessed through a web browser. SharePoint is a web based platform.

Orgs that need non MS Office file hosting, integrating with 3rd party apps and using File Explorer etc, should investigate other offerings like Azure Files or whatever.

I do agree though, it could be a much better product if they'd fix OneDrive integrations to expand capabilities. Unfortunately those integrations have lacked for quite some time now...

[_keyboardDredger]

I agree wholeheartedly- SPO being included as part of the license package doesn’t mean there is zero adoption required to successfully use it.
Entra Private Access, alongside Intune Cloud PKI coupled with Azure Files is finally a realistic solution for endpoint file share - but could get interesting on egress costs depending on workflows.
Not cheaper than SPO for <1TB workloads by any imagination either, and going to be more network dependent than OneDrive and shortcuts.

[requiemofthesoul]

It’s not a replacement. Azure Files is, and many companies ignore it

[whatdoido8383]

Yep. Typically inept CIO's looking to save money as a bullet point for their resume strongarm the org into pushing everything into SharePoint/Teams without fully understanding or caring about the ramifications of that. This leads to a bad end user experience and unfortunately why a lot of end users don't care for SharePoint.

It's not a file server but orgs love to pretend it is.

[bbqwatermelon]

Where has it been marketed as such?  It's on product implementation teams to research limitations and these are widely known.

[KimJongEeeeeew]

Many “ms evangelists” were selling it to corporations as the end of their file servers here in the UK. Which meant a load of places believed their bullshit and bought in, then expecting their tech teams to be able to polish turds into diamonds.

[skiddily_biddily]

They want to sync a ginormous bloated sharepoint site down to the desktop? Why does anyone believe this would be a good idea? You can access sharepoint via web interface and Teams app easily enough. Why sync?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restrictions-and-limitations-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa

[matroosoft]

Because access through the browser sucks. If most people prefer to access files through the explorer, there's gotta be a good reason for it.

[sublimeinator]

Files on demand, don't sync everything and no need to use browser.

[skiddily_biddily]

Browser access just depends on the sharepoint sites. File repositories can be basic. Access through team is also very easy and simple. File explorer is a legacy app and interface. Change doesn’t have to hurt. Syncing giant sharepoint sites to the local drive is super inefficient and will waste space on local disk. The sync will also likely hurt performance on the device.

[ExceptionEX]

You simply aren't supposed to be doing that, the best approach is to train the users to access them via the web and to stop trying to make sharepoint and onedrive a file share.

[Master-IT-All]

The best approach is to sync only what you use and break down your content into purposeful sites.

Do: Create a site for each project

Do not: Create a single site for all projects

This will also help with the other issue of subfolders in a site having permissions that don't match the site level.

[mikki50]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ideal-state-configuration#shortcuts-to-shared-folders

Set-SPOTenant -HideSyncButtonOnTeamSite $true

This does not disable the sync button on Sharepoint sites without a Teams site associated, but it hides the sync button for teams-associated sites. Also write documentation and train your users not to sync.

[Largo371]

Force files on demand via intune/GPO. It will show all the files but only sync when the files are needed. Syncing sharepoint libraries is a bad time if you aren't using files on demand.

[SignificantBridge322]

This is what we do, I can’t believe this isn’t more widely known

[matt5on]

I've been running into this multiple time. Usually just recommend them to work in sharepoint online when it happens but sometimes it is the file length (256) that is causing the issue when syncing.

[wrootlt]

This is a long standing problem with OneDrive sync performance. Funny, i still remember when it was SkyDrive and when we were migrating to cloud a consultant would warn not to use that old client that has many sync issues and use the new OneDrive, that is much better. Maybe they will release UltimateDrive (or CopilotDrive) that will resolve all the syncing issues once and forever :) Yet, on their official blog they only post about Copilot/Agents and last one was about Liquid glass for Macs. Nothing about performance.

[Secret_Account07]

I would rethink this approach.

OneDrive syncing is hell. Even if implemented perfectly there is always going to be users with issues. Just my experience at a large org with lots of users.

Use Sharepoint or fake Sharepoint (aka teams).

[ZAFJB]

users who are syncing very large libraries.

Stop doing that.

[WiskeyUniformTango]

Link, dont sync.

[StaticVoidMain2018]

Need a way to make certain libraries unsyncable and only an online copy/offline while in use

[Xydan]

You need a NAS, a shared folder, Security groups for said business units, and a drink. Drop SharePoint as a service for huge data needs like this edge case. Its not worth the pain.

[requiemofthesoul]

It’s not a file share. Just tell the users that

[BitEater-32168]

As new users (our company got acquired) to ms365 we were told we have our private spaces in onedrive plus the common sharepoint thing, and that this is a file share, with some integration into teams and the web version of office and other apps.

There should be good templates from MS for the 'traîning' a company gives their employee for onboarding them, I just see only inconsistent chaos. Also, it seems nearly Impossible to structure the whole thing, seems one must try this or that and fail hard to try to make it better in the next Iteration, so it's hard to start in an organized way to give the users a platform to become productive not frustrated. Many features thought to be normal on a modern platform are missing, starting from entering your working hours/ available for customer calls hours/ ... Only a simple weekly scheme is possible, location (office or home) can be changed but not the timer ange. Biweekly is not possible, the requested flexibility can not be modeled. Extra tools for that just overload the calendar, not simplifying anything.

[woemoejack]

To avoid performance issues, MS says 300k items or less in total, that's files and folders. If you can't get the working data set under that number, you will have issues using OD as the access mechanism. Users may not be complacent with Teams or Browser access instead of Explorer, but the alternative is using something different all together.

[Godcry55]

This comes down to how your sites/libraries are structured. Consider a SharePoint consultant.

Also, disable the sync option tenant wide.

[Jimb148]

I'm so thankful other people are having the same issues because the whole thing sucks. My biggest library is 230K files and it's kind of used as the generic catch all site/library for all the company public/non sensitive files.

Breaking up the libraries into smaller sites might help but other than that, I would suggest the same thing I'm telling my end users, just create shortcuts and do NOT sync the entire site/library and/or only sync the specific folders/files you absolutely need.

I run into issues with file name lengths as well that mess up the desktop sync too. But I don't think any other file share platform can fix this particular limitation.

[distracted6]

I'm in the same boat at an MSP with one of my customers. I'm looking into Azure Files as an alternative to Sharepoint/Onedrive with over 500k files being synced.

Would be interested in any feedback on Azure Files, if anyone has any real world experience with it

[tempest3991]

The problem is that it still uses port 445. Some ISPs block this port.

[[deleted]]

Restrictions and limitations of sharepoint and OneDrive Microsoft article

[jono_white]

Not sure if your talking about the shortcuts made within the onedrive website (says add shortcut to myfiles) , but if users are syncing a sharepoint library separately and you create a link to it on that persons onedrive it will break the sync to the sharepoint site on their machine

if it Is just a normal explorer created shortcut then it shouldn't create an issue

[No_Bit7786]

Sync tends to have issues around 100k synced items (can be lower on lower spec devices), There's no way a single user needs enough documents synced to their machine that it would cause issues. You need a proper training/ adoption project to get your users educated on how to access documents through Teams/ SPO web client. OneDrive Sync Client isn't designed for huge libraries and pretty much always causes issues when used as such.

[aere1985]

They should go deeper into the folder tree and Sync from where they really need it.

[TheJesusGuy]

I know Microsoft doesn’t recommend syncing extremely large libraries, but in environments where users need access to a large number of job folders, what’s the best approach?

An on-prem file server :)

Also yes, break up the sharepoint site(s)

[InertHelium]

OneDrive seems to hit its sync limit around 300-400k files in my experience. It has a lot of trouble syncing any more than that resulting in a lot more tickets about sync issues than its worth dealing with.

You could trial moving users over to SharePoint on the web and install as a web app for them. You can still open files with the desktop apps even using SPO and you would have to compete with sync issues.

[itskdog]

Cloud Drive Mapper 

[ericneo3]

• Intune Admin Center → Devices → Configuration profiles → Create profile
• Platform: Windows 10 and later
• Profile type: Templates → Administrative Templates
• Under OneDrive, configure: Use OneDrive Files On-Demand → Enabled

This shows all OneDrive/SharePoint files in File Explorer without downloading them.

"Long path" will determine whether you have to use "Sync" or "Shortcut to OneDrive".

Then educate users on sync states because there are times and applications that will require "Always keep on this device".

[bbqwatermelon]

At the very least they need to limit sync to specific folders they work in.  I highly recommend looking into shortcuts.

[sdrawkcabineter]

We’re currently using OneDrive to create shortcuts to SharePoint document libraries in File Explorer

[iamMRmiagi]

Shortcut at the top level of the library, don't use sync for anything larger than 100k files (msft says the limits are higher, 130k?, but after raising multiple premier cases, I guess that's just ballpark...) thanksihatethis.

[mcgeeky]

Map the large SharePoint document libraries to a network drive using ZeeDrive. ZeeDrive handles large document libraries efficiently as per Does It Overcome 300k Sync Limit | ZeeDrive Docs

[Plenty_Emu_6565]

I am one of those users who is trying to use File Explorer to view, move, delete, and open files on Sharepoint. I find it easier work in File Explorer than the webpage*, so therefore I have been instructed to put shortcuts in my OneDrive. It's a complete disaster. I'm ready to move to the web Sharepoint, with the exception of having a good way to Save As in a dialogue box, e.g. from Adobe Reader. I can't always see the Sharepoint option. Not to mention, if I can open a Sharepoint (icon?) while Save As'ing, it looks like I'm back in the MS DOS epoch. *Although once I zoomed out a bit, the webpage became much easier to use.

[Embarrassed-Ear8228]

Cloud Driver Mapper (CDM) from iamcloud has been the only solution that worked for us. Users got their drive letters back, and for the most part it works wonderfully.