OneDrive processing 1.6 million changes after Sync Small Folder

Question

Hi,

I was accessing my company's SharePoint in the browser, clicked Sync, as usual the OneDrive sync prompt popped up, and I confirmed to sync that shared SharePoint folder to my OneDrive.

My computer froze a few minutes later as OneDrive was processing more than 1.6 million changes. The folder I tried to sync has less than 200 files and is only a few hundred MB in size. Why is OneDrive processing such an absurd amount of changes?

Is it for some reason processing every file in my company's SharePoint? even though I double checked and I definitely chose to sync the correct folder which is not very large.

Answer 1

We also see this everyday.

Like many companies, our site has an enormous amount of files in it, however, our team only needs very "specific" folders from the site that contain less than 100 files and the intial sync can take hours (sometimes spilling into the following day).

It has nothing to do with the individual's "personal" OD folder since these are new team members that have no files (we are white-gloving their device for day 1)

SP has done this for years - I too wish this could be resolved as it consumes quite a bit of time to setup new team members (or even existing ones if they want or need something from our main site)

It is true that our 4TB site could absolutely benefit from a redesign, however, we know we are not alone in dealing with this very old issue and would be AMAZING if MS could provide a fix for this. (or at least an explanation of why they are indexing that enormous amount of files before they actually target the destination folder I want)

Regards

**Here is our example of my syncing 1 SP folder with 104 PDF files (small - none larger than 1mb) - this is about halfway completed --started at 9am today EST

Once this completes, the actual true sync of that folder takes about 20 seconds and any subsequent folder syncs also are quick. This is why I suspect it is indexing the entire site folder and file structure before it even starts with what you actually need or want.

**It also has to count all of them and then it counts back down before it starts. We have just learned to work around it and plan setups with a long lead time

Answer 2

We are seeing this happen also.

We are only syncing a small folder but it processes the entire company. After processing only the fold that I originally chose is syncing which is correct but it took forever to process files that it did not need to.

Is this a bug?

Answer 3

Hi Dillon,

Thanks for the reply, but I'm 100% sure I did not sync the root folder of my company's SharePoint. I am familiar with the sync feature on both SharePoint and OneDrive. I doubled checked multiple times in the File Explorer like you mentioned, and also in my OneDrive APP Folder Sync Settings. Both correctly displayed that I was only syncing the folder I want to which only has around 150 files.

Answer 4

Any update on this? Having the same issue! But no solution…

Answer 5

Hi Carolina,

If you go to your File Explorer (the folder icon) you will see the little building icon on the left with your company name.

Expand this and see what folders you have synced. Perhaps you synced the root documents folder of a SharePoint site.