Forum Discussion
Stephen Rose
Microsoft
MicrosoftAnnouncement: OneDrive Sync Updates
All of us here on the OneDrive Team have been hard at work delivering many of the OneDrive sync client updates we communicated at Ignite to further improve the user experience and administration of syncing files from Office 365. With the holidays rapidly approaching we wanted to give you an update on those enhancements.
The best part is the latest OneDrive sync client will automatically update with these new capabilities. If you aren’t running the latest OneDrive sync client, or aren’t sure, you can learn more here.
Activity center
The activity center is now available in the latest OneDrive sync client on Mac and PC giving you visibility to the most recent sync activity and status. Simply click on the OneDrive icon in your system tray (PC) or Finder (Mac) to see your file sync
Conditional access
You can now restrict OneDrive sync to only domain joined or workplace joined devices. You can even make access contingent on PC health if you like. All of this can be managed through the new OneDrive admin center preview and by configuring Azure Active Directory policies. Learn more here.
Syncing SharePoint sites
Making sure you have the information that is critical to you on every device no matter where you are is key to our customers. The ability to sync SharePoint sites directly to OneDrive is one of these features that makes doing this easier and simpler for end users. We’ve had great feedback on the public preview of syncing SharePoint Online document libraries in the latest OneDrive sync client. We remain committed to providing a reliable and performant sync experience for all your Office 365 files and continue to refine the public preview to meet our quality expectations. We’re on target to make this capability generally available in January.
Standalone Mac client
Ever since we added OneDrive for Business support to the latest sync client, we’ve seen an increase of adoption and interest from the Mac community. However, one of the largest blockers for enterprise deployments is that most admins do not want to utilize the Mac App Store to deploy and distribute software due to its limitations.
Today we’re releasing a standalone OneDrive sync client for Mac that you can deploy and manage outside of the Mac App Store. This standalone client also provides sync status visual overlays in Finder, a Finder shortcut for OneDrive, and the ability to set-up OneDrive sync to run at log in. This latest client also has built-in multi-language support. You can get the standalone client for Mac here.
As we get ready for 2017, I want to take a moment to wish all of you a healthy and happy new year from the OneDrive/SharePoint teams here in Redmond. We look forward to continuing to bring all of you more great innovation while finding new ways to make you more productive no matter where and how you choose to work.
Thank you and happy holidays!
Stephen L Rose
Director, OneDrive Product Marketing
Great! Are there any plans to allow syncing libraries from other companies? E.g. a library from another tenant is shared with me and I want to sync it with NGSC... Thanks Christian
- Is there an official article in which I can find limitations using the new client, like the number of items per site and in total I can sync?
- Stephen Rose
We will look to release technical documention when we GA the product in a few weeks that will cover all of those aspects.
We aren't able to get this to work.
- We have a supported version of office - latest from our Office 365 account which is set to First Release (i.e. slow ring)
- downloaded and installed the client. .1212 is installed and running.
- Set the registry key. Looked in registry and validated it was set.
- Closed the OneDrive client.
- Restarted it.
- It asked for login. It then said I was already syncing with that user ID (and I was on the OneDrive for Business side, not the sharepoint side)
- Groove still running and in control of our Sharepoint sites.
- Have this on Windows 7.
- Rebooted for good measure.
I got this to work on my Win10 machine back in Sept, but there was no Sharepoint takeover then, it was a manual setup.
How do we force the takeover from Groove? We have 3 machines now with .1212 running and all it is doing is the ODB side. Groove still doing the SHarepoint sides.
Hi Stephen Rose, I like Sharepoint sync for files onboarding, but I'd like to generally disable Sharepoint Sync but still allow OneDrive for Business Sync. Will this be possible?
The main reason is fear of Ransomware. Or are there any other suggestions on how to tackle this?
- Anatol NorocUntil something like this will appear in OneDrive Admin Center, maybe something like this can be used: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/How-to-enabledisable-sync-8ad53996
- Stephen Rose
If you customer is running Windows 10 Anniversary Edition they have Windows ATP and Microsoft Edge which would eliminate this issue. What your asking can be done but creates a subpar experience for the customer.
Happy to jump on a call to discuss.
Ivan54 wrote:Hi Stephen Rose, I like Sharepoint sync for files onboarding, but I'd like to generally disable Sharepoint Sync but still allow OneDrive for Business Sync. Will this be possible?
The main reason is fear of Ransomware. Or are there any other suggestions on how to tackle this?
Hi, thanks for the response. Would you care to fruther elaborate on both points?
I know Windows Defender ATP is supposed to further help with post breach attacks, and Edge is getting some (not sure which is relevant here) security hardening. But are they combined really able to prevent 100% of new emerging ransomware attacks?
Also, how is preventing SharePoint sync a subpar UX? If anything I'd argue that syncing the files offline is getting my users a subpar Sharepoint experience since they are missing out on additional document library features and views?
Hi Stephen,
Great to hear that GA is ETA next month, we're awating this for our Win10/EMS/O365 deployment to a target group of 25 000-30 000 users in total.
A key question for us though is - will you be bringing back the context menu in the GA release? Currently there seem to be different versions distributed to different customers out there, some have the context menu and some don't.
The whole point of syncing SPO libraries locally is to be able to work and collaborate on files using File Explorer. Without the context menu users cannot right-click the file and copy link to easily paste and share the URL wherever/however they like. Instead they have to struggle to find out what the URL is in order to copy and share it.
Therefore the lack of the context menu is really a usability issue for us.
Thanks,
Richard
Yes this. Stephen Rose the context menu "Get a Link" is absolutely must and is sorely missed. In absence of this, users have to go online and go through a convoluted process of getting a link via web interface!
Abhimanyu Singh wrote:Yes this. Stephen Rose the context menu "Get a Link" is absolutely must and is sorely missed. In absence of this, users have to go online and go through a convoluted process of getting a link via web interface!
Stephen Rose Any update on the right-click context-menu "Get a Link"? I am yet to hear anything on this. This functionality is most essential for our users.
My users keep complaining of the convoluted process of getting a direct link to any file where they have to open their OneDrive or SharePoint library in browser and use the "Get Link" there.
The new "Share" option in the context menu shnown in the Virtual Summit yesterday, doesn't cut it for getting those links quickly enough. The new "Share" option will open up the dialog for sharing options in a window with embedded web interface which will be slow and frustating. We want that old "Get a Link" option back which was lightening fast and gave the direct link (relevant people) straight away without going through the hoops.
Point of clarification: is the App Store client deprecated? Where should we point our users to? I was hoping there would be a nice landing page for the app, with a download link off of it (rather than a direct download to the pkg file like you did in this post.
- Stephen Rose
Point users to the download links in the article since this is not in GA yet.
Stephen Rose Is installing this client enough, or do we still need to do the registry setting like described in this article https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Get-started-syncing-SharePoint-sites-with-the-new-OneDrive-sync-client-Preview-6de9ede8-5b6e-4503-80b2-6190f3354a88
- Now we need the ability to sync Shared folders on OneDrive.
Thanks for the ability to better sync SharePoint to OneDrive. The interface pictuure that is attached seems to be the OneDrive personal and not the OneDrive for Business client based on what I'm seeing, should the Business client be getting the same visual?
Let's hope OneDrive for business works better than standard OneDrive. It's been three days and I am still unable to use OneDrive app in my Mac since the last update, which actually doesn't update. So many people upset out there and Microsoft doesn't reply to any queries.. Terrible customer service for a company such as Microsoft.
- Stephen Rose
Are you running the new standalone Mac client?
This is the OneDrive personal. I have run the standalone, the mac store and none of them works .. I am now at the point that I will have to move all my file to an external hard drive and forget about the imcopetence of Microsoft. I am still unable to get OneDrive personal to work. I hope it goes better for the Business side.
Great improvements are in the Sync client this year and promising. Congrats team for your hardwork.
Has Microsoft worked with any of the 3rd party vendors like Centrify or such to assist on determining if a Mac is "domain" joined or not with the AD environment?
