Syncing sharepoint root folder without syncing subfolders.

Question

I have Sharepoint (and team) set up for different project folders (channels).

How it looks on Teams:

Team Name

Chanel/Project Name 1

Chanel/Project Name 2

Chanel/Project Name 3

Chanel/Project Name 4

Chanel/Project Name 5

Chanel/Project Name 6

Chanel/Project Name 7

Chanel/Project Name 8

...

If I "sync" the root library to OneDrive, it brings in all subfolders and I have to "uncheck" each newly added folder. It looks something like this on my local computer (if I don't "hide" the extra folders).

C: Company Sharepoint OneDrive

Other SP directory 1 - Documents

Other SP directory 2 - Documents

Team Name - Documents

Project Name 1

Project Name 2

Project Name 3

Project Name 4

Project Name 5

Project Name 6

Project Name 7

Project Name 8

...

I'm only on certain project teams and only want to sync those project files. If I "sync" within those relevant folders, it creates new folder directories in our company onedrive/sharepoint directory like this folder structure below. It adds way too many folders in the "main" directory, especially if I'm on hundreds of projects.

C: Company Sharepoint OneDrive

Other SP directory 1 - Documents

Other SP directory 2 - Documents

Team Name - Project Name 3

Team Name - Project Name 5

Team Name - Project Name 6

...

I'd like to be able to have the root directory without bringing in extra subfolders. I'd like it to only sync subfolders where I manually hit the "Sync" for. I'd like the file structure to show up like below.

C: Company Sharepoint OneDrive

Other SP directory 1 - Documents

Other SP directory 2 - Documents

Team Name - Documents

Project Name 3

Project Name 5

Project Name 6

...

Is there a way to accomplish this either natively or some type of automation?

I know a tedious work-around would be to uncheck folder visibility (in OneDrive folder settings), but it would need to be done every time a new project folder is created that I'm not a part of. Note, I am an O365 admin in my organization. **** I use "I" for my examples, but this is be applicable for everyone in my organization.

Thank you in advanced.

Answer 1

Dear Stacey,

We're straying further from the desired intent. The Add shortcut to OneDrive does just that, it adds a shortcut to my OneDrive directory, it's a shortcut, it's not a locally synced folder. And it's in my OneDrive directory, not my Sharepoint directory. This just moves the problem elsewhere.

Answer 2

Dear ITPretender

Thank you for your quick response and we also appreciate you spent your precious time doing the tests and providing the detailed description to us.

If the method in above replt can't work on your end, please try to try the following steps to see the outcome:

Go to SharePoint>select the specific folder>Click Add shortcut to OneDrive

Sync to your own OneDrive to see if it can meet your requirement.

Welcome to update the latest situation to us, we'll continue to help you all the time!

Sincerely,

Stacey | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 3

Oh this was an interesting approach and sounded promising, but it DOES NOT WORK and actually makes the problem worse. On the surface in my Onedrive folder, it produces a similar outcome to the 2nd scenario I described above, so it does not solve the problem.

C: Company Sharepoint OneDrive

Other SP directory 1 - Documents

Other SP directory 2 - Documents

Team Name - Project Name 3 - Project Name 3

Team Name - Project Name 5 - Project Name 5

Team Name - Project Name 6 - Project Name 6

...

AND each of these folders are not just sub folders from the same document library..., private and shared channels make entirely new Sharepoint sites, which means these new directories are actually entirely new document libraries from entirely new Sharepoint sites.

Note, private and shared channels also have limited capabilities than standard channels.

Answer 4

Dear ITPretender

Good day! Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

From your description, it seems that you want to have a way can only sync the certain folders in certain channel without sync all subfolders in SharePoint.

If my understanding is correct, per our test, you can set the certain project teams' channel as private channel, then when you hit sync, it will only sync the folder in the private channel and it will not create the extra folder when syncing. Since if you set the channel a private channel, you can only sync in this channel and other public channel you can't access to sync. In this way, you can only sync the subfolders as the structure you want.

So as a workaround, you can set a private channel to achieve this requirement. And we should tell you that due to the design behavior in Teams, it is not feasible to change an existing channel from Standard to Private. As a workaround, we recommend you create new Private channel when you need it. 

And you can change your team from Standard to Private in Teams:  go to the team name and select More options  > Edit teamtoward the bottom of the menu. Under Privacy, select either Public or Private.

If this is not your scenario or you need any further assistance, please feel free to post back. We’re looking forward to your reply and will continue to help you all the time!

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Sincerely,

Stacey | Microsoft Community Moderator