I've got a user who synced an entire SharePoint site to their hard drive, and it's completely filled up the space. This is causing the OneDrive app to malfunction, as it apparently needs some empty space to upload any changes. As a result, the user hasn't been able to sync any files for around six weeks, possibly since January.
To make matters worse, all the other users in the department are facing 'Too Long File Path' errors because of this engineer's misunderstanding of how the system works. They've been shortening file and folder names while keeping them in the same relative paths, leading to a mismatch between their local directories and SharePoint.
Here's what I've done so far: I disabled OneDrive syncing temporarily, moved the unsynced files to a non-syncing location, created a backup of those files, then re-enabled OneDrive sync without syncing the whole SharePoint site again. I've also provided some basic education to the user to prevent this from happening in the future.
Now, I need help figuring out the best way to sync these local files back to SharePoint. I want to:
1. Check the original file path,, and if it matches, compare files to see if they're different. If they are, I'd like to upload the local copy and append something like "CopyFromUsername-Date" to the file name.
2. If there's no exact file path match, I want to check for fuzzy matches and upload files if they're different or missing.
3. I'm considering a folder structure map or some other option to help with path matching.
Anyone have suggestions for a script or software that could streamline this process?
3 Answers
Consider installing a SPMT agent on his device. It can handle the migration and run a report beforehand to let you know what you'll need to move over.
Honestly, I would just copy the files to a different drive and have the user sort it out manually later. If I’m feeling frustrated, I might even just wipe their computer and let them figure it out!
We’ve had so many problems with the SharePoint sync that we’ve started calling it a "forbidden button." The best solution we’ve found is using the "Add Shortcut to OneDrive" option. It really reduces the issues you're facing with filling up hard drives.
Yeah, totally! The sync feature is pretty rough around the edges.
You can turn off the sync feature in Document Library settings, which has worked well for us with large repositories.