OneDrive on Mac OS Monterey: Where are the offline files saved?

manasfromca wrote:

Hello,

This issue concerns OneDrive on an M1 Pro Macbook Pro running on Mac OS Monterey.

I have created a volume "Workspace" for keeping my work-related files and chose that "Workspace" volume for my OneDrive folder. Now the OneDrive folder in the "Workspace" volume shows a sign indicating it is an alias. When I searched for the original folder, it was found in the "users" directory in the Macintosh HD volume. Now when I opt for the "Always keep on This Device" option for a file or folder in my OneDrive, where (the original version) will it get stored? In the "Workspace" volume or in the Macintosh HD volume?

I tried to check this and observed something very surprising. I opted to keep a folder available on the device. The size of the folder is 1.44 GB. Now, after this, the Workspace volume shows an increase of 1.45 GB in used space, and the Macintosh volume too shows an increase of 1.45 GB in used space. Is OneDrive keeping duplicate copies of the same folder in both Workspace and Macintosh volumes? Or is this how the used space is calculated, considering the local OneDrive files/folders to be tagged with both volumes? But the surprising thing is that the available space in the container (shared between the volumes) is decreased by 2.9 GB. So it is taking up twice as much space on the disk. I have checked it for another folder, and the result is the same.

How to solve this issue so that space taken on disk is equal to the size of the local file/ folder? Otherwise, my available disk space is effectively becoming half!

Thanks.

OneDrive help & learning - Microsoft Support