Another really bad thing about this release is that you can't directly trash files from OneDrive any more. They're permanently deleted (after warning you). You can go to the web and restore them, but at that point they aren't downloaded even if you have selected Always Keep on This Device for the folder you restore them to. There are some workarounds including Keyboard Maestro, but that's not available to most users.
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Microsoft Responds to OneDrive Mac User Criticism Following Decision to Enforce Files On-Demand Feature [Updated]
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It sounds like you're continuing to use OneDrive as a secondary backup. But you have no reliable *primary* backup since you're allowing the files to only be in the cloud.
It's a partial option--it works for files and folders already on the device or added on the device in the future. Files added on other devices don't automatically download even if you've chosen Always Keep on This Device for the folder those files are in.
I mentioned Time Machine in my post.
Mac + TM + OneDrive is three locations that critical documents are.
This is really terrible. If it’s true that files added on another device aren’t downloaded on other devices until those device accessing them (in spite of Always Keep on This Device is turned on), then that option is absolutely deceptive.
This is frustrating.
From the notes and updated notes that Microsoft has made with regards to this new default, I still don’t see any reason why that is the default.
I seriously don’t know what’s up with this trend… things get “updated”, “upgraded” or “a full complete overhaul!” and it’s in reality a crapshoot, half baked feature subset of the original software at times or bug ridden with features that looks like it wasn’t tested before hitting the release button.
Every time I open Microsoft Teams I cross my fingers: it takes long to load, it usually upgrades something (sometimes it fails at that and stays stuck), and there’s the chance that it breaks features like some months ago an icon flickering that led to a massive memory leak over a few minutes of use (fix? Close and reopen).
I know, I’m whining and complaining, but come on, enterprises pay for these tools, in the case of Teams it is just a chatting app… I would understand if these massively used app were all handled by Joe’s “Whenever I Find Free Time” Single Man Dev Shop Inc but Microsoft? No.
But if my experience is anything to go by, maybe I can find some empathy. It is my belief that a part to blame could be all these “Agile”, “Scrum”, “Processes Processes Processes!” craze going on, it’s maybe overdone that it becomes a clutch instead of an aid. I work at a huge game company, we are a team of six, small, fast… yet every time there’s a company wide decision regarding something ultimately incredibly minor we get sucked in a myriad of back and forth emails, meetings, meetings about meetings, legal teams, etc that it ends up being like 20 something upper management people loops for a team of six. We can do games in a month or two, yet deciding if using title A or B can take a month… I would flip a coin if I can’t decide in 15mins of that.
With that environment pictured I can totally get it: “fine, here’s the Files On Demand Always On switch, there’s absolutely no way I’ll submit myself to another set of weeks discussing with all these random people that appear at the finish line to make it all slow and painful” said the dev in charge of it.
Alternative method of ‘Always Keep on This Device’ and ‘Downloading’ for the root folder of OneDrive:
Please keep in mind that this is not a solution for fixing communication errors, and editing files/folders on another device may prompt you to do the steps again.
- Go to ~/Library/CloudStorage/
- Right-click OneDrive and you can Always Keep on This Device too
- Also after selecting OneDrive, click on the downloading (‘cloud’) icon on the preview panel
Please keep in mind that this is not a solution for fixing communication errors, and editing files/folders on another device may prompt you to do the steps again.
What really bothers me is that downloading is actually cosmetic sometimes, as files/folders may have been downloaded to the cache already but the File Provider API does not update. Thus when I click on the icon to download, it downloads nothing.
Aside from the communication errors, if Always Keep on This Device can be applied to the root folder, why can’t OneDrive include it in the settings and describe it as ‘Files On-Demand disabled’? Microsoft, and maybe Apple as well, should solve the new confusions they brought.
You're close to the mark.
The real issues that Microsoft have at this point in time are broken down into three separate problems:
1. They switched to automated QA and telemetry and did such a bad job of it that their reliability metrics aren't actually matching customer demand. They haven't worked this out yet. Not only that some customers, myself included, have compliance issues with Telemetry. On top of that if you do phone them, even as a paid up support case or partner, there is no possibility to actually get anything fixed other than a registry hack from first line support by some poor dude in India. Either that or it's feedback hub time which is a nightmare at best. Do not believe this ******** that you can actually contact them and get some diagnostics or fixes because that's not going to happen, even if you're a paid up Enterprise O365 contract with thousands of seats like us.
2. Microsoft treated most of their staff pretty badly over the years. I know a few ex Microsoft folk and between the stack ranking bulls excrement, the constant churn and the inability for teams to actually proceed on anything due to the layers of poor product management it's not an environment that people want to work in. So there's a high staff turnover and therefore a high knowledge turnover. Most of the time when someone starts working on a problem there they have to reverse engineer the whole product first.
3. The whole platform is built on a pile of legacy a mile high on both the server and client side of their cloud offering. Some of this is due to their forced success but a lot of it is due to the platform and framework churn over the years. This means that a lot of the work goes into migration rather than actual product delivery and defect fixing.
At the end of the day, the reason this is the way it is happens to be a mix of all the above issues. They didn't know it didn't work properly during testing because:
1. as per 1, the testing is done with clients in production via telemetry and their automated QA is poor.
2. as per 2, they don't understand the problem completely because everyone who built this originally probably works at Google now.
3. as per 3, there are compounding issues both server and client side which they have to navigate around.
And you want to put your files in this mess? 🤣
Incidentally I work for a 8000 seat corp who have EVERYTHING in OneDrive and mostly on windows and we've lost data and it breaks for everyone almost weekly. A fine example is I manage my todo list using a markdown file in VScode that is sync'ed to the onedrive folder on Windows. Once a week I was getting a junction point error which causes it to trash the entire list. I have moved the list to github now...
MacRumors, please keep a spotlight on this issue for us!
I encourage you to post updated stories, report on user experiences, ask Microsoft for comments, etc. (perhaps even weekly). Consider posting a video highlighting the issue.
Currently, there is no clear solution to the issues cause by this update. Like many others, I've tried to tell OneDrive to keep folders always available on my device, yet the content is not downloaded and changes on other devices do not download to the local device. It's so ridiculous to see two OneDrive icons on the same folder -- one noting that it is always available on the device and one noting that you need to download its content.
Thanks for your awesome reporting and please keep feet to the fire on this one if you can!
I encourage you to post updated stories, report on user experiences, ask Microsoft for comments, etc. (perhaps even weekly). Consider posting a video highlighting the issue.
Currently, there is no clear solution to the issues cause by this update. Like many others, I've tried to tell OneDrive to keep folders always available on my device, yet the content is not downloaded and changes on other devices do not download to the local device. It's so ridiculous to see two OneDrive icons on the same folder -- one noting that it is always available on the device and one noting that you need to download its content.
Thanks for your awesome reporting and please keep feet to the fire on this one if you can!
Thought I'd post a bit about my experience, since it's a bit different from others. I know different people have different situations and different issues with this. But I have found that doing what you mention here does work for me. I have 2 Macs and 2 PCs that I use OneDrive on, and I have a personal and a work account. I have tested this 2 ways. I created a Word doc on my MacBook and saved it to OneDrive. It was successfully downloaded to the PC. (I have Files on Demand turned off on the PC.) Then I created a Word doc on the PC and saved it to OneDrive. Within 5 minutes it was synced to the MacBook AND fully downloaded--in both the sync root, with no cloud icon, and the cache. I have set all folders to "always keep on this device" on the Macs. And while some of the folders in the sync root do still show the cloud icon, ALL files are fully downloaded in the cache--a Get Info on the folder is the right size. (I had Files on Demand turned off prior to the update.)
Having said that -- I agree this is definitely not the preferred way I'd like to see this work and can see where it would break workflows and mess up backups. Plus there definitely seem to be some bugs that need squashing. And the way Microsoft rolled this out was atrocious. But for me at least it seems to be working the way it's supposed to (although I have spent a great deal of time working on it to ensure that it is.)
I've managed to get all the files available on my device, but the frustrating part is in Spotlight, it doesn't appear as folder but "a OneDrive file" (don't know if that makes sense) and if I click the folder (for example "Word Study" folder), OneDrive starts up instead and the folder doesn't even open via Spotlight.
A new version of OneDrive client is coming to help with this:
techcommunity.microsoft.com
Updates to Files On-Demand on macOS | Microsoft Community Hub
Based on your feedback we are releasing updates to Files On-Demand on macOS, that would address most common concerns.
techcommunity.microsoft.com
I have office 365(not from the apple store from office365 web site is how I installed it) I had not turned on my macbook pro in a while and got an alert saying that it needs to be updated thing is I dont know how to update it..should I Just remove it from the macbook and download the app store version?
If you already have the direct license I don't see any reason to switch to the App Store version. Just apply the updates and move on. My understanding is that the App Store version of OneDrive has yet to be updated to Apple silicon for some reason.
To get the updates, open one of the Office 365 apps, go to Help in the top menu and Check for Updates appears there. This opens Microsoft Officer updater. This should get it done for you.
How is it unsuccessful? The cost? It’s easy as hell to use and if I don’t want to, I don’t.
Yeah that is what I did but after that when I was updating the macbook pro to the latest version is when I got that message about one drive..but once I rebooted the macbook pro the message was gone so I guess its OK
Word on iPad is terrible, it's artificially handicapped software. Microsoft absolutely cares more about their own hardware and software on those devices than they do about how their software works on Apple's mobile devices. I have no doubt however that they make much more money from Apple users than Android, but when you're a monopolistic behemoth that has been printing money hand over fist for decades because your software and services are everywhere, "serving your customers" is an anachronism.
Is Word on Android better? It’s better on desktop computers, sure, but it’s also better on Mac then on iPad. I still think Microsoft is a services-first company.