Prevent delete actions when syncing

Question

Hi,

We are using office365 midsize business (including sharepoint). When users sync a sharepoint document library, the documents get synced to their laptops.

Now it sometimes happens, that users accidentially delete a whole folder or forget to stop replication. As this action gets replicated to the sharepoint library, the documents are wiped everywhere. It's a lot of admin effort to undelete them - and it takes a lot time to replicate the deleted documents again to all users.

So my questions are:

1. Is it possible to do a "read-only" sync or a one-way sync to the laptops? Many of our users consume support documents and just some of them update them.
2. Is it possible to sync a folder, allow modifications to synced documents (modifications get synced which is fine), but deny deleting the whole document?

Any ideas are welcome :)

Thx, Andreas

Answer 1

Hi Andreas,

It's not feasible to meet the requirement for your questions.

For the issue “accidentially deleting the files”, as a workaround, the files which we delete in our local synced folder will be removed to the recycle bin in the document library. We can find them more easily via this method if they are deleted.

I understand it would be nice if we have these features when using the sync client to sync the files, given the situation, I would suggest you submit feedback to our related team via UserVoice as this the best way to improve the product. Many features have been designed or upgraded based on our customers' constructive comments.

Thanks for your understanding.

Allan