After upgrading to Monterey MS Onedrive folder got inside iCloud

I did not do anything else but move to the 21.250.1205.0002 (Standalone) (Apple silicon) (Preview) version.

I do have the folder in GroupContainers and the one in CloudStorage but only the files in CloudStorage seem to use real disk space (at least). They are kept in sync though, in the sense that when I add or remove files in CloudStorage/OneDrive, I see the change reflected under the OneDrive.noindex inside GroupContainers and vice versa. So only the double disk space problem is solved yet :-(.

The file handling inside CloudStorage is really annoying

• It can take ages for something to sync
• I frequently see the cloud/arrow symbol on files I did use recently (so when I open, they first download again)
• my color tags don't sync anymore

Did some more digging today and wiped my OneDriveStandaloneSuite folder (stopped OneDrive before), then did a OneDrive reset with the command script inside the OneDrive app pack contents. Finding: The OneDriveStandaloneSuite folder and .noindex gets recreated. The size is 89GB (235MB on disk) - so that really only holds an index of all the files but not the content. My OneDrive folder inside CloudStorage was scanned after the reset (took about 20 minutes). I'll live with the situation for now as it does not take double space, but it would really be good to have one location only and if file tags would sync correctly...

Hi Leonardo,

Thanks for taking this up with MS Support. You did a nice job of highlighting the issues with the images and screen recordings. Hopefully they will come back with a sensible response. I'm still hoping for a fix to be released.

Although I had hoped to use the local folder :

Macintosh HD>users>[user name]>Library>Group Containers>XXXXXXXXXX.OneDriveStandaloneSuite>OneDrive - [account name].noindex>OneDrive - [account name]

..as my permanent OneDrive folder - since it contains my locally stored files, the lack of indexing is problematic. Many files at this location - presumably the files that were originally stored locally - open normally from here, without needing to download from the cloud. However other files within this folder do not function - probably because they were originally stored in the cloud?. When browsing this folder and subfolders, there is no way to tell which file will work, until you attempt to open it. And although the folder synchs with the cloud OneDrive, it doesn't seem to know to download a functional version of a non-functional ghost/alias file even when you try and open it - it just gives an error message.

Interestingly, I think my OneDrive updated at least twice, if not more, today (v21.225.1031.0001->1.0002->1.0005):

However I rebooted and restarted OneDrive twice but there was no apparent fix to the problem :-(

Rodger

Very annoying, same here. The files in the CloudStorage location and in the .noindex folder seem to be related concerning content/size but the cloud location does not see the other local location, so I have to download everything into OneDrive first to have it all back to local. The two locations don't use up twice the storage, so there is some relation but definitely not the local/cloud state.

When I get the files into OneDrive from the cloud (by clicking the little cloud/download symbol), this works for some files but not all. For some, I get "The file couldn't be opened" as an error message in the Finder, which then breaks the recursion, so I have to go into the folder and look what is not downloaded to local yet. Very very annoying.

Needless to say that nothing should have moved into the magic CloudStorage folder in the first place and that the local files and their downloaded states should have been preserved! Getting everything to local would be a solution but seems to be tricky now with the "The file couldn't be opened". I'll continue to download everything and will report back here when done and hopefully some pattern which files "couldn't be opened".

In any case, a correction tool/resync or even a fix in OneDrive would be very useful.

I wanted to start from current state, so I did not remove anything, did not clean files and did not reset OneDrive!

Interestingly, the 21.250.xxx version now does NOT increase size in the GroupContainer folder anymore - yeah!!

All files I mark for local are properly downloaded in the corresponding OneDrive folder inside CloudStorage and do not take space inside the GroupContainers! So finally, files don't seem to take twice the space anymore - huge improvement! What is now needed is either OneDrive to really clean up what does not need to be there - or I'll toy around with deleting the corresponding files in GroupContainers and then resetting OneDrive... Risky...

I still don't get why the OneDrive.noindex in GroupContainers needs to exist when the structure is in the CloudStorage folder anyway. Likely a remnant of the former implementation that did not use the CloudStorage folder/API.

Here is my story. I got a notification pop up that asked me to give OneDrive access to my folders. I agreed and that blew up my file structure and put me back where I was when this all started. I spoke to Microsoft support directly about it and the tech didn't know about the problem. He researched it and came back a few days later and said they didn't have a known solution.

I have given up on OneDrive after using it successfully for 10 years with great results. I have switched to iCloud to get more stability. Switching is easy but VERY, VERY, slow. uploading 350 GB is taking over 3 days to sync.

Sad story but I couldn't waste more time trying to solve a problem and they have Microsoft undo it with a "helpful" note.

Sorry to send this unhelpful news.

Sorry Guys, I think I need correct myself. The situation comes back one day after and I think I found out that the ugly way of display is actually an update by Onedrive. Onedrive standalone will update itself automatically. My version is now 22.002.0103.004. Most files will be on-demand....so there is no cure or say no need to have a cure. The only thing we need to do is to get used to it. It takes time but I think the app will fix itself and link all files correctly in the system....it just takes a long time and it looks ugly.

no need to do that i think. it is part of onedrive's update, though it looks ugly. just let onedrive finish its job. In terms of the command, it is under the app's package. right click on the app, show contents, go to contents-resources then you will see that reset.... file. in terms of step 4...please just search...

I raised a ticket with Microsoft on 8 December and provided screen-grab videos showing many of the defects others have described above. After days of runarounds they just stopped responding to me after 16 December, despite requests to escalate the ticket as it described bugs that affected everyone trying to run newer versions of OneDrive on Monterey.

No response, until suddenly, on 5 Feb, they replied once more, with “Sorry, this one got lost in our queue due to tool issue.” and “We are aware of the changes made after the latest update of MAC. You can refer to below article to know more about the changes.

Inside the new Files On-Demand Experience on macOS - Microsoft Tech Community”

Very late, poor help desk service, but better than nothing - so now we know the intent. Pity it’s been such a bumpy, buggy, uncommunicative and ultimately poor user experience ride.

Microsoft could, and should, do better.

I have the same issue, OneDrive 21.210.1010.0001.

OneDrive on Big Sur no issues and location was $HOME/OneDrive.

After Monterey install, the location is now $HOME/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive and $HOME/OneDrive is a link to the first.

As CloudStorage seems to be this magic-handled folder by Monterey, I can't move it.

It looks as if icloud sees all the files as cloud only.

opening a folder comes up emtpy, then the content comes seconds later.

OneDrive is synchronizing files that were not touched and it takes forever.

It really looks as if icloud sees all as cloud and when onedrive or Finder access, it does an on-demand download. which would explain why OneDrive takes forever.

As OneDrive has file history that I don't want to lose, how do I turn off the icloud magic or how do I move the onedrive folder out of CloudStorage and into the former original location?

Same issue here.

Files were initially cloud based which caused errors on regular backup, which is how I discovered this change. I had to manually set them to remain on my device.

I unlinked one of my accounts and now cannot delete the folder created by OneDrive.

I can't find anything on Microsoft support about this.