OneDrive notes

OneDrive can be be very useful for sharing files amongst a small number of computers. However, it does have its limits and issues caused by it can be difficult to resolve. This is not meant to be a comprehensive knowledgebase on OneDrive; we are just covering the highlights.

This page is only for users using a shared OneDrive on a small number of machines.

Please, note; OneDrive may be used as a cloud Backup or for data sharing – NOT BOTH.

If you have OneDrive on your device, Microsoft seems to try to get you to use it by default to store your Microsoft data. Also, during initial installation, Microsoft may offer you the option of syncing your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folder with OneDrive. If you do this on more than one device, you may find yourself sharing the relevant folders on other devices.

This page is for general notes only, as we don’t directly support OneDrive.

Using OneDrive as a backup

OneDrive can be used as a form of cloud backup storage area and when set up correctly, works well. If OneDrive is to be used as a backup, we recommend using 3rd party software to back up your OneDrive data.

Using OneDrive to share data

Great for sharing files amongst a small number of users. This is NOT a backup. You should use a 3rd party app or other hardware device (NAS) to carry out proper backups.

Quantity of files stored on OneDrive

There is a limit to the number of files OneDrive can handle, it is supposed to be 300,000 files but we have found this to be considerably less.

Quantity of users

One drive has a limit of 6 users. One of them is the Owner and the other 5 are users. If this number is exceeded, there may be unresolvable sync issues on random devices.

Maximum size of a single file

The maximum size of a file is supposed to be 250GB. In practice, uploading and downloading cumbersome files of this size may take too long resulting in sync issues across multiple devices.

Path length (including the length of the file name)

The maximum path length of a file is 400 characters. However, some systems only permit a max length of 256 characters – including the file name.

Invalid characters in file names

There should not be a space at the end of or at the beginning of a file name. Other rejected characters are *, :, <, >, ?, ", |, /, \ Some computers or other languages may have other invalid characters.

Licencing

If you install OneDrive on multiple machines and you want to share the data, you must make sure you are using the correct Microsoft licence. This may or may not be your email address. It may or may not be a special account created by your admin. It may or may not be the Microsoft account used to authenticate some of the Microsoft products on your device.

Other points

OneDrive doesn’t always Sync all files all the time. There are several alleged fixes for this including stopping and re-starting OneDrive (re start the relevant device if you don’t know how to do this).

Onedrive may be restarted on an individual PC with one of the following commands;

Open a CMD prompt as administrator first.

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset

On a 64 bit computer;
C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset

On a 32 bit computer;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset

Individual file / folder not syncing

If a single file is not syncing, Restart OneDrive. If this doesn’t work, go to a device which is syncing the file properly. Make a temp folder. Copy the relevant file into it. Rename the original file. go back to the temp folder. Copy the file back to its original location. Verify that this file is syncing on the other device. you may then dele the temp folder and the renamed file.

Recommendations

If you use OneDrive,

1 – Keep well within the rules.

2 – Avoid using any other file syncing software on your device.

Alternatives

Store the data on a local server (or an NAS) and use a VPN for external access. Google Drive and Dropbox are useful alternatives which also come with their own limitations.