Sync folder using links with onedrive.

Question

Hi everyone. I need to find a way to sync a folder in my pc with onedrive without actually saving the files inside the onedrive folder. The reason is that the folder must be able to be accessed from Linux, so after booting back in Windows the files added get synced. Onedrive uses a custom reparse point tag for its folder, so Linux won't natively work with it, and workarounds are all complex and not reliable (as Microsoft is not supporting onedrive in Linux in any way).

I had seen you could simply use a directory junction, or by Microsoft, a directory symbolic link, (as per https://superuser.com/questions/1189944/how-to-link-a-folder-to-onedrive-without-moving-the-folder-to-the-onedrive-folde ) But for both, I have the same issue: the contents only sync when I close and reopen onedrive, or force a rescan by renaming a file in the onedrive root. Also, the contents inside the linked folder inside onedrive stay forever with the "syncing" notice. According to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/can-t-synchronize-onedrive-files-and-folders-from-a-local-file-location-other-than-the-default-onedrive-path-b7eef9d4-4203-431d-8345-fe49254f9da0 I can only place the target inside the onedrive folder, but this is EXACTLY what I don't want to do (as I can't save into that from Linux, as the link points to the onedrive folder which can't be accessed).

Is there any way of making this happen? A hardlink would be the answer but those are supported for files only. Or some other way?

Answer 1

Hi, I'm Elise, and I'd be happy to help with your issue.

Unfortunately the short answer is that there isn’t a good way of doing this, you have already mentioned the standard workaround to the issue.

The only further suggestion I can give is to submit feedback on the issue using the feedback hub app, you can find this in the start menu. Hopefully a feature will be added in a future release which facilitates what you are looking to achieve.

Kind Regards,

Elise

Answer 2

See the OneDrive settings to exclude that folder from OneDrive sync