Although I no longer use Dropbox, this is exactly why I don’t immediately rush to install versions of macOS anymore. These newer releases need up to .7 before they are mature.
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macOS 12.3 Will Include Cloud Storage Changes Affecting Dropbox and OneDrive
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I believe it was a marketing decision. Microsoft finally got to windows "10" and Apple wanted to look like it was the leader in the OS market so their product became 11. Now that windows 11 has arrived there is already a MacOS 12. I would expect this to continue for the foreseeable future. It is a petty thing but it is what these companies do.
Huh, that's a workaround if I've ever seen one. Thanks for the info, appreciate it.
I was hoping that maybe a reboot would make this work better. Nope.
Before I could just open my projects folder in Finder and immediately see all my files.
When I open the folder now, it's blank. I have to wait for OneDrive to fetch contents and display things.
Before: Me open folder > Finder shows files (instant)
Now: Me open folder > presented with blank folder > OneDrive "wakes up", checks online, uses a bunch of CPU, gets list of files > Finder shows files (big delay).
If I pick "Always Keep on This Device" from the parent folder, it still doesn't download anything until I browse to each folder to list files and then open something. Is there a way to force it to download everything again?
After opening each folder and waiting for its contents to appear, then they get the little checkmark icon. Opening each folder shows OneDrive using ~60% CPU in Activity Monitor, just to display files.
How is this supposed to be a better experience?
I pay for a Microsoft 365 for my family and my employer pays for it so all of us can use it at work. All of our data is there. I can't just easily switch to a different product.
Before I could just open my projects folder in Finder and immediately see all my files.
When I open the folder now, it's blank. I have to wait for OneDrive to fetch contents and display things.
Before: Me open folder > Finder shows files (instant)
Now: Me open folder > presented with blank folder > OneDrive "wakes up", checks online, uses a bunch of CPU, gets list of files > Finder shows files (big delay).
If I pick "Always Keep on This Device" from the parent folder, it still doesn't download anything until I browse to each folder to list files and then open something. Is there a way to force it to download everything again?
After opening each folder and waiting for its contents to appear, then they get the little checkmark icon. Opening each folder shows OneDrive using ~60% CPU in Activity Monitor, just to display files.
How is this supposed to be a better experience?
I pay for a Microsoft 365 for my family and my employer pays for it so all of us can use it at work. All of our data is there. I can't just easily switch to a different product.
Updated to 12.2 today that was released and OneDrive is not working. Open file in word and I can’t use auto save etc.
Can’t force download files I need to open them before downloading etc.
Can’t force download files I need to open them before downloading etc.
They say it’s going to work for Finder and that mostly third party apps are on the to-be-fixed bandwagon.
So, I could expect non Third Party apps like QuickTime Player, Final Cut, Keynote, etc to pull the online-only files properly? Or that counts as third party too from Dropbox’s point of view?
So, I could expect non Third Party apps like QuickTime Player, Final Cut, Keynote, etc to pull the online-only files properly? Or that counts as third party too from Dropbox’s point of view?
Unfortunately this is ruining my experience of using OneDrive. The option "Always Keep On Device" at the folder level does not appear to propagate down the folder structure. So that means reference files that I need (either to quickly check or re-use elsewhere) have to be downloaded.
If the file is small its a a second or two but when its a large image or PPTX its a few seconds. This adds up to the annoyance. I don't see this issue on my Windows 10 machine. This basically makes me feel like I don't own my files anymore.
I can't see myself using this. Will wait a few days before deciding continuing with OneDrive or not. Maybe this is a bug on their end. Let's see.
If the file is small its a a second or two but when its a large image or PPTX its a few seconds. This adds up to the annoyance. I don't see this issue on my Windows 10 machine. This basically makes me feel like I don't own my files anymore.
I can't see myself using this. Will wait a few days before deciding continuing with OneDrive or not. Maybe this is a bug on their end. Let's see.
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It doesn't - google is a decent company with competent devs... who still uses Dropbox? lol
There's a long thread on the Google cloud community (with Google Drive dev responses) to the issues they're having supporting the changes in macOS 12.x. It's possible that 12.3 will help, or maybe it will make the existing Google drive issues worse. ?♂️
This is a massive flustercuck on the part of Apple.
Their new little idea just screwed up my entire OneDrive workflow, because, guess what, I actually like having big external drives connected to my Macs and my entire OneDrive file structure ALWAYS available offline.
Here's the thing: with this newfangled API, not only the OneDrive folders look ridiculously amateurish (they are basically aliases, while the cache is the old folder, except renamed as “.ODContainer-OneDrive”, but the path given to the files is stored at ~/Library/CloudStorage, whether these two are on the same physical volume or not, but… users aren't exactly warned about that change at all) ALL files are treated as if they were only available on-line, whether they are cached locally or not, which means… NOTHING “Mac-like”/native works. No custom icons, no file tags/labels, no QuickLook… A complete, unmitigated mess. I don't know who screwed the pooch on this one, but I'm not about to sit idly by waiting for them to sort out this mess.
So what did I do? I immediately called Apple Care and demanded them to escalate this to Engineering at Cupertino, which I suspect they eventually will. I have a scheduled call on February the 5th with the same expert that answered me (she even knew from memory – or was a really fast researcher – that the equivalent iCloud solution by Apple stores stuff in ~/Library/Mobile Documents, so I'd say she was pretty knowledgable about the inner workings of macOS), so that we may produce a proper feedback report, complete with user logs and whatnot.
Then, I proceeded to shut down all instances of OneDrive, turn on hidden file view on the Finder (by pressing Command+Shift+period) and MOVE the whole shebang into my unlimited storage, academic Google Drive account. I'm giving up auto-save and one-click versioning access in Office365 apps, but honestly, considering how I already have a Time Machine backup drive permanently attached… Good riddance!
But Apple isn't getting away with this anyway… Why they would turn on this API mid-cycle, on a point update focused on an EXTREMELY important Safari security patch, instead of on a major 1x.0 version, when users kind of expect this level of disruption by default, is beyond me. This isn't added functionality, this is a functionality-breaking API change, and it's extremely bad form.
If Apple forces Google Drive to adopt this and messes that solution up as well, I'm gonna go mediaeval on them. I am, however, a bit optimistic; it's almost as if Google engineers knew – and cared about – just how bad the API was and, when forced to move away from the old one – which might explain why they changed their app from “Google Backup and Sync” back to “Google Drive”, but maybe that was just a happy coincidence – they just came up with their own custom thing… which I'm still not a huge fan of (those stupid “virtual connected server” links it creates on the sidebar every time it loads really nag me), but considering how the file structure still works and feels completely native, screw it. It's now my go-to solution for cloud storage, and I hope it stays that way.
Their new little idea just screwed up my entire OneDrive workflow, because, guess what, I actually like having big external drives connected to my Macs and my entire OneDrive file structure ALWAYS available offline.
Here's the thing: with this newfangled API, not only the OneDrive folders look ridiculously amateurish (they are basically aliases, while the cache is the old folder, except renamed as “.ODContainer-OneDrive”, but the path given to the files is stored at ~/Library/CloudStorage, whether these two are on the same physical volume or not, but… users aren't exactly warned about that change at all) ALL files are treated as if they were only available on-line, whether they are cached locally or not, which means… NOTHING “Mac-like”/native works. No custom icons, no file tags/labels, no QuickLook… A complete, unmitigated mess. I don't know who screwed the pooch on this one, but I'm not about to sit idly by waiting for them to sort out this mess.
So what did I do? I immediately called Apple Care and demanded them to escalate this to Engineering at Cupertino, which I suspect they eventually will. I have a scheduled call on February the 5th with the same expert that answered me (she even knew from memory – or was a really fast researcher – that the equivalent iCloud solution by Apple stores stuff in ~/Library/Mobile Documents, so I'd say she was pretty knowledgable about the inner workings of macOS), so that we may produce a proper feedback report, complete with user logs and whatnot.
Then, I proceeded to shut down all instances of OneDrive, turn on hidden file view on the Finder (by pressing Command+Shift+period) and MOVE the whole shebang into my unlimited storage, academic Google Drive account. I'm giving up auto-save and one-click versioning access in Office365 apps, but honestly, considering how I already have a Time Machine backup drive permanently attached… Good riddance!
But Apple isn't getting away with this anyway… Why they would turn on this API mid-cycle, on a point update focused on an EXTREMELY important Safari security patch, instead of on a major 1x.0 version, when users kind of expect this level of disruption by default, is beyond me. This isn't added functionality, this is a functionality-breaking API change, and it's extremely bad form.
If Apple forces Google Drive to adopt this and messes that solution up as well, I'm gonna go mediaeval on them. I am, however, a bit optimistic; it's almost as if Google engineers knew – and cared about – just how bad the API was and, when forced to move away from the old one – which might explain why they changed their app from “Google Backup and Sync” back to “Google Drive”, but maybe that was just a happy coincidence – they just came up with their own custom thing… which I'm still not a huge fan of (those stupid “virtual connected server” links it creates on the sidebar every time it loads really nag me), but considering how the file structure still works and feels completely native, screw it. It's now my go-to solution for cloud storage, and I hope it stays that way.
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Can you share that thread with us? I'm at one such thread, but it's still only 3 pages long. At this point, I no longer have any skin in the game, but morbid curiosity is getting the best of me. ?
Well, that, and wanting to know what's going on in the market. Even though I moved away from OneDrive for the foreseeable future, I can't make any predictions as to how things will evolve, so… It's good to be aware of what my options are.
Devil's advocate's view: people buy computers to run applications, and operating systems are there to provide a stable foundation for running apps. If "minor" OS updates break major business apps like Dropbox and OneDrive, you've made a bad operating system.
Fair, and as a product manager in the software space I agree with you on this generally.
But as a security and privacy nerd, I would argue that the kind of hack that Dropbox and OneDrive were using should have been deprecated long ago. It feels like the kind of thing that could've been announced to devs around WWDC with a formal cut-off timeline the same way that 32bit and Carbonlib did as well.
So, while the replacement API has been available for years, and I think DropBox and OneDrive have no excuse for not having switched to it sooner, I do agree that Apple should've given more heads up.
That said, 12.3 isn't out yet, and they did provide this warning now. So really that point is moot.
Developers still have time, and consumers shouldn't be doing mission critical work on beta releases of products.
Here's a link to the thread with the Google Drive product manager's latest comment:
Re: Mac Spotlight not indexing Google Drive files in desktop
Thanks for the pointers! We're familiar with that API but unfortunately it's not really built for filesystems and runs into scalability issues quickly if we try to repurpose it. We have macOS experts with serious experience, but we are still limited by Apple's APIs. And yes, we are familiar with...
I think you may be right. Per some more discussion in the above thread I linked, Google used to use a kernel extension which will no longer be allowed as of 12.3, so they are a little ahead of the game there. Unfortunately, their current implementation does not allow Spotlight to index files when drive is configured to "stream" files (as opposed to sync) and there doesn't appear to be an easy solution.
The similar loss of Spotlight indexing for OneDrive and SharePoint libraries has been quite disruptive for people who had been doing full local content syncs. A significant loss of function for many Mac Monterey users!
Yep. The only reason I wasn't raging mad when complaining to the Apple expert about this was because she was super knowledgable and nice, and really doing her absolute best to log all my real-time experiments and feedback. It's Apple OS Engineering I'm mad at, not AppleCare.
We did reach the conclusion that the API was a complete mess (basically, the Finder isn't caching files until you open them for the first time, and not upon being downloaded, which is completely dumb) and that the feedback would be logged, and likely escalated.
It seems I wasn't the only one to notice this, because she did hint at many similar complaints. They'll likely fix this in some 12.3.x or even 12.x update, that much I'm sure of. Also, they should allow for on-the-fly file streaming, at least for smaller files and fast internet connections, even for those on-demand-only files, with a temporary cache.
Nothing has changed. I upgraded to Monterey in late September and my OneDrive stuff was immediately borked. As mentioned, none of the files are treated as local, even AFTER being opened. No "Mac specific" finder stuff works on them at all.
That and other issues have been enough (with my and my university's workflow with Sharepoint) for me to move back to PC. I prefer working on Mac, but it's just a pain in the ass when we are predominantly Microsoft, and even the basic Office Suite on Mac is a sub-standard imitation of the Win version.
I managed to hack OneDrive to work “the old way™”, even on an external drive, and I’ll be sure to post instructions here on how to do so (not right now because, y’know, it’s Christmas day and all that). Stay tuned!
