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Microsoft Responds to OneDrive Mac User Criticism Following Decision to Enforce Files On-Demand Feature [Updated]
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Such a lame explanation by Microsoft. That kennel extension has been marked to go away for 2 years. They've had PLENTY of time to update and not use it. They chose not to do so. No one to blame but themselves. They do the same all the time too, removing pieces of Windows. It's very common.
Look at Little Snitch. When macOS 12 was announced they had to change how the program functions, is installed, etc. They've frequently had to update due to access to various kernel extensions. And yet they've done it.
Microsoft is just lazy. Nothing more and their excuse tries to transfer the blame to someone other than themselves, where it fully belongs.
Look at Little Snitch. When macOS 12 was announced they had to change how the program functions, is installed, etc. They've frequently had to update due to access to various kernel extensions. And yet they've done it.
Microsoft is just lazy. Nothing more and their excuse tries to transfer the blame to someone other than themselves, where it fully belongs.
Blah blah blah... computer industry continuing to prove that complexity is the chief opponent of reliability.
I know there are cases where people find stuff like this to be useful, and I don’t begrudge them wanting the utility, but I’ve learned from decades of experience with this industry that so much of it is broken or just garbage, and crap I don’t want to ever deal with.
I know there are cases where people find stuff like this to be useful, and I don’t begrudge them wanting the utility, but I’ve learned from decades of experience with this industry that so much of it is broken or just garbage, and crap I don’t want to ever deal with.
Microsoft is just... like most corporations: do nothing until there’s literally no option not to. Sometimes they’ll just abandon a product instead of investing in it, because it doesn’t make “enough” profit (making some profit just isn’t enough). Corporations are generally conservative. They do not look ahead to anything except the current quarter profits and stock prices.
If you're using OneDrive, you blew it. iCloud Drive is the ultimate integrated cloud storage solution for Apple consumers with great pricing, features, privacy and security protections.
Ah, so that's what happened. Work forces us to use One Drive and when I started my work week, or maybe it was Tuesday, everything was gone. It was a bit alarming at first, yeah, let me keep files on this machine, ugh...
OneDrive for Windows:
OneDrive for Mac, before update:
After update:
In the updated Microsoft article, the author explains the new, more complicated process to "Always Keep On This Device". Then he has a case of selective amnesia and says "We're actively looking at ways to make this easier to configure on both macOS and Windows". Does anyone honestly not see the irony? And the Apple Human Interface Guidelines which warns developers to not make secondary-clicking and context menus the only way to access a command.
Then the author poses the question "Is there a technical reason that explains why Files On-Demand must always be enabled?" He spends several paragraphs extolling the virtues of Apple File Provider. He uses the same Apple PR style of saying "only a small number of users..." when they try to downplay issues. In this case, he says "Only a very small number of users disable Files On-Demand on both platforms". And he never answers his own question about why it must always be enabled with no way to turn it off.
If Microsoft really believes that this "new Files On-Demand experience" is better than having a checkbox in settings, then they should do the same thing to OneDrive for Windows. Put their money where their mouth is.
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Contrary to many statements here, these problems are not simply the result of Apple deprecating the kernel extensions used by OneDrive in macOS 12.3, and Microsoft's response to that. Many key features of OneDrive were arbitrarily changed, files were deleted off of user's hard drives (or appeared to have been deleted) without any warning to the user, MS pushed this update without any way to opt-out of it, and there are TONS of bugs in Microsoft's new implementation:
1. The "Always Keep on this Device" function simply DOES NOT WORK. It does not download and keep on your local machine the full version of your files. I have verified this error/bug several times over the past 3 days.
2. Spotlight will not index the full contents of files in your OneDrive folder
3. You can not get a total file size, or count of the number of files in a folder within your OneDrive folder on your local machine. This data is simply not available.
4. Time Machine will not back up files within your OneDrive folder unless they are all fully downloaded, which they aren't because of #1
5. Backblaze and other cloud backup solutions do not work correctly with files in your OneDrive folder.
I could go on, but the version 22.x implementation that MS released broke many of the key functions that users relied on, and which were working fine prior to this release. As you can read in the hundreds of posts on the OneDrive blog, many users have lost days of productivity because of these bugs, or had their workflows completely disrupted. It is a catastrophic situation for many people.
1. The "Always Keep on this Device" function simply DOES NOT WORK. It does not download and keep on your local machine the full version of your files. I have verified this error/bug several times over the past 3 days.
2. Spotlight will not index the full contents of files in your OneDrive folder
3. You can not get a total file size, or count of the number of files in a folder within your OneDrive folder on your local machine. This data is simply not available.
4. Time Machine will not back up files within your OneDrive folder unless they are all fully downloaded, which they aren't because of #1
5. Backblaze and other cloud backup solutions do not work correctly with files in your OneDrive folder.
I could go on, but the version 22.x implementation that MS released broke many of the key functions that users relied on, and which were working fine prior to this release. As you can read in the hundreds of posts on the OneDrive blog, many users have lost days of productivity because of these bugs, or had their workflows completely disrupted. It is a catastrophic situation for many people.
Some of us don't have a choice, some of us are lucky to work on Mac's while everyone else works on Windoze and the company uses One Drive for everyone. Took me nearly 17 years to get a Mac at work, yes, I've been working at the same place for that long.
They use a combination of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google servers for iCloud and related services.
Onedrive and Microsoft and Apple itself are a really bad nightmare for Mac business users (!). At first, Microsoft is not supporting multi-Orginational login (Teams..OneDrive Web..) and the second, now they (bastards) Removed MY files from MY computer and the worst, I can't download them back.
iCloud is not an option for any business use. The security is a joke. Any iOS-device in a family where the device password is known, gives access to everything (under iCloud account). I don't want to have multiple icloud-accounts just because the Mighty Apple is too Lazy creating multiuser family device based logins. (what is so damn difficult having multiple users on the same device..?)
As I understand Dropbox and Google Drive are the only options for a business user at the moment to enjoy finder.app searches on a Mac and having files even when offline. Good for them.
Well done Microsoft and Apple!!! (A file that is "always on my Mac" - Not)
iCloud is not an option for any business use. The security is a joke. Any iOS-device in a family where the device password is known, gives access to everything (under iCloud account). I don't want to have multiple icloud-accounts just because the Mighty Apple is too Lazy creating multiuser family device based logins. (what is so damn difficult having multiple users on the same device..?)
As I understand Dropbox and Google Drive are the only options for a business user at the moment to enjoy finder.app searches on a Mac and having files even when offline. Good for them.
Well done Microsoft and Apple!!! (A file that is "always on my Mac" - Not)
I am not sure either. I guess for some, the update removed their local files and they have to download them again. This did not happen to me but for some it did. I bet in most cases they had their files not in the default location and on some other drive.
iCloud works the same way if you check "Optimize Mac Storage" as in it leaves stuff in the cloud and only downloads it when you open it.....or "files on demand". You can force it down by right clicking and choosing "Download Now".
I didn’t know you can just hit “always keep on device” for the entire OneDrive folder! That solves my issues. I was doing sub directories one by one. I just like having offline/bad internet access. Loving the OneDrive update! Way better interface and way less CPU usage.
"Is there a technical reason that explains why Files On-Demand must always be enabled?"
Do you mean enabled by default....because you can click that button "Turn Off Files On-Demand" and it won't be "always enabled".
The problem is that "Always Keep on this Device" simply does not work, or does not work reliably. I have verified this multiple times over the past few days. Microsoft has not yet acknowledged this bug. And for a variety of other functions within Finder, files and folders in OneDrive now do NOT behave like regular files or folders. As one example, you can not get the total filesize within a folder, or a count of the # of files in that folder, when that folder is in your OneDrive folder.
Microsoft is Android first company with regard to mobile devices. iOS users need to realize that.
Working great for me! I am running the native M1 beta so maybe they’ve fixed whatever bugs you’re experiencing in that?
This sounds to me much more like (b), since they offer a reasonable work around (right clicking and selecting "always keep on this device") it doesn't seem like it the new API would somehow make it impossible to just have a settings checkbox for "keep all files always on this device".