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Can an external user sync a shared OneDrive for Business folder to local computer? How?

Anonymous
2020-01-26T12:47:02+00:00

I need to share files with some users who are not on my Office 365 account. I specifically moved to OneDrive for Business (the only service I'm using in Office 365 for Business, I use Office 365 Home for everything else), because it let me specify individual users for access and requires them to sign-in using their MS account for access. OneDrive Personal shares a link and anyone with the link can access -- no security.

Yes, external users can access the shared OneDrive folder in their browser, but that's as far as I can get them. I need these external users to be able to sync the files to their local computer so changes they make automatically propagate back to my OneDrive account. I can't figure out how to do this and don't see much on the Internet about this.

Is this a business decision by MS -- if I want them to be able to sync this share to their local computer, do I have to pay to add them to the OneDrive for Business account (which I'm absolutely not going to do)? If so, I should drop my paid OneDrive account and switch to DropBox, which supports this capability in their FREE version! Yeah, DropBox free is limited to a few GB of data, but that's plenty for my needs.

I can understand a security option to not allow guest/external users to sync and require access only through the website, but I can't understand making syncing impossible. After all, if the external user can download the files anyway and has Edit access, that that user can already do anything with the files and the ability to sync doesn't really create any additional security holes. But it's a massive boost to productivity when lots of files need to be changed or accessed.

I hope I'm just missing something here and this is my stupidity, not a harsh business practice by MS to try to force me to pay for a bunch of extra OneDrive for Business licenses. Please advise or help:

  1. Is it possible for external users (assume they already have working OneDrive (personal) accounts) to sync OneDrive for Business files to their local computer?
  2. If yes to #1, how?
  3. If no, WHY NOT!?

Thanks for any help or guidance.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-01-26T19:15:47+00:00

    I figured out one way to do it, which works for me, but may not be an option for everyone. Here's what I've concluded: 

    1. I don't think it's possible for a user who only has a personal OneDrive account to sync files shared with that user from a OneDrive for Business account (I'd love for someone to tell me I'm wrong on this).
    2. You can share files with a user and let them sync without paying for an O365 license by creating an account for the user on the O365 tenant, but keeping it unlicensed. Without a license, the user won't get his or her own added dedicated storage space, but for simply accessing an existing share, this should be all that's needed.
    3. The key to syncing is that the user must not try to sign in through OneDrive by adding a "Work or school account" (which is what I had originally tried, and it just errors out because the user is not licensed). Instead, use the link from the sharing, go to the web page, and use the "Sync" button. This will then prompt for the O365 account (the unlicensed one), then successfully install and connect to OneDrive for Business. Note that the sync button ONLY appears if the user is signing in using the tenant account, not a OneDrive personal account.

    The big thing is this requires setting up an unlicensed user account in your O365 tenant. If you're not willing to add an account to your tenant, even a free one, then this obviously won't work.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-01-26T20:55:46+00:00

    Hi Granite State Colin,

    Thanks for your understanding :).

    We truly appreciate the feedback as this contributes to improving our product. Hoping the feature can be accepted by the developers one day.

    Best Regards,

    Hugo

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-01-26T19:42:20+00:00

    Hi GraniteStateColin,

    You are right. It's not possible for external users to sync OneDrive for Business files to their local computer at present, the shared folder won't appear in the external users' Shared folder.

    I've consulted this question and got this explanation: OneDrive and OneDrive for business are different platforms, the working mechanisms for different functions also different.

    Really appreciate the shared workaround concluded above and hope this can helps when other community members search for this question.

    At last, we sincerely suggest you create a new idea in Feedback by UserVoice in the OneDrive on the web category. In the event other users having the same demand, they would be able to vote for your post. The more users vote, the more likely this feature will attract developers' attention, it will benefit more users once this idea can be accepted by the engineering teams.

    Best Regards,

    Hugo

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-03-30T19:01:45+00:00

    Good evening

    Can I please check to which email account would you send the link to?, is it the unlicensed user account just created or to the email of the person you want to share the link with?

    Thanks 

    Darren Walker

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