OneDrive infinite login-MFA loop on work-issued Macbook but not Web or on personal Macbook

Question

OneDrive infinite login-MFA loop on work-issued Macbook but not Web or on personal Macbook

Infinite Loop Victim 20

I'm using a work-issued M2 2022 13" Macbook Air running Tahoe 26.5.2. We use Microsoft 365, and all of a sudden a few days ago my (Standalone) OneDrive app entered an infinite loop:

Open OneDrive
Input my work email address
I'm brought to my work's SSO login page
I input my work password and I am directed to Microsoft Authenticator
I input the code
It says "signing in," and then goes back to #3 (my work's SSO login page)

I am not receiving any sort of error message, I'm just sent back to my work's SSO login page. The weird part is that it lets me log into OneDrive using MFA just fine on web. I don't get the error message you would if you input your password or MFA code wrong (I tried and doing that gives me a normal error message related to the password/code being wrong). I tried restarting my laptop, resetting OneDrive on my device, all of the steps here: https://nektony.com/how-to/uninstall-onedrive-on-mac, and clearing my Safari cache. I've also tried it on different WiFi. I am not logged into my personal Apple ID since it is my work computer so I don't have anything in Keychain or Passwords. I am, however, able to log in just fine via my personal laptop, which is an M3 2024 13" Macbook Air (also running Tahoe 26.5.2). This worked when I tried it with both the App Store version and the Standalone version.

Both myself and my work's IT are at a loss of what to try. Please help!

Moved from Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | Other | MacOS

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Answer 1

Jade Ng 14,785 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Dear @Infinite Loop Victim,

Thank you for providing such detailed information and for outlining all the troubleshooting steps you've already completed.

Based on what you've described, the issue does not appear to be related to your account credentials or MFA registration itself, as the authentication process completes successfully and the same account can sign in through OneDrive on other devices. Instead, the behavior suggests that the problem may be related to the local authentication state, device registration, or cached identity information on the affected Mac. Similar sign-in loop scenarios can occur when the device's authentication tokens, SSO registration, or corporate device configuration become out of sync with Microsoft Entra ID.

To help narrow this down further, could you please ask your IT administrator to verify the following:

Is the affected Mac properly registered and compliant in Microsoft Intune/Company Portal (if your organization uses device management)?
Does the issue occur when signing into any other Microsoft 365 desktop applications on this Mac, such as Outlook, Teams, or Word?
Are there any Conditional Access, device compliance, or sign-in policy failures shown in the Microsoft Entra sign-in logs for the affected sign-in attempts?
Has the device recently been re-enrolled, restored from backup, migrated, or had any corporate management profile changes applied?

In addition, I recommend collecting OneDrive diagnostic logs from the affected Mac and having your IT administrator open a Microsoft 365 support ticket through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Support > New service request. Microsoft support can review the authentication and sign-in traces to determine whether the loop is being caused by device registration, SSO, Conditional Access, or a OneDrive client issue. Guidance for collecting OneDrive logs on macOS is available in Microsoft's OneDrive troubleshooting resources.

The support team over there has higher permission than us to investigate the issue from background, they have more resource and correct escalation channel in handling this kind of issues. This would be a more efficient way in handling the case for you.

For reference:  Get support | Microsoft Docs   

Again, I truly appreciate your patience and understanding. Hope you having a nice day and really much warm regards to you as well!

Jade Ng 14,785 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-26T23:32:24.99+00:00

Dear @Infinite Loop Victim,

I hope this message finds you well!

I just wanted to check in and see if you have any updates or additional information you’d like to share regarding your situation. If there's anything new or if you need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Looking forward to your response!
Infinite Loop Victim 20 Reputation points

2026-07-27T12:51:58.0733333+00:00

Hi Jade, thank you for your response. I have some answers while I wait for IT to check the other things:

Re: point 2, I appear to have access to the desktop applications themselves, but when prompted to sign in in order to access any files on OneDrive (which is most of my files), the same loop occurs.

Re: point 4, the device was not recently re-enrolled, restored from backup, nor migrated; I don't believe it had any organizational management profiles changed either. The only system-wide thing that occurred recently was a MacOS system update, but that was a few weeks ago and this loop problem only started last week (and I successfully used OneDrive for work on this device daily between those instances).
Jade Ng 14,785 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-28T03:32:19.43+00:00
Dear @Infinite Loop Victim,

Thank you for the additional information and for clarifying those points.

Before proceeding with a support ticket, I would like to try one additional set of troubleshooting steps to rule out any corrupted authentication or licensing credentials stored locally on the Mac.

Please try the following:

Open any Office application (such as Word or Excel).

Sign out of the Office application and then quit all Microsoft Office applications.

Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access.

Search for and remove any credentials, identities, or tokens related to Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365, OneDrive, or your work account.

Reset the Office activation state by removing the locally cached Office license information using Microsoft's recommended license removal process. How to remove Office license files on a Mac

Restart the Mac.

Open Word or another Office application and sign in again using your work account.

After confirming Office applications are signed in successfully, launch OneDrive and test whether the sign-in loop persists.

Since the issue is isolated to the OneDrive desktop application on your work-issued MacBook, while the same work account can successfully access OneDrive on the web and from another Mac device, this appears to be beyond standard end-user troubleshooting.

Based on the troubleshooting already completed and the fact that the authentication loop occurs only on the affected device, I recommend working with your organization's IT administrator to open a Microsoft support ticket for further investigation. The support team can review backend authentication logs, device registration status, Conditional Access policies, and OneDrive client diagnostics to determine the root cause of the sign-in loop.

Please feel free to reply below if you have any update or further concern. I appreciate your patience, and I am here to help!
Infinite Loop Victim 20 Reputation points

2026-07-28T13:46:04.9566667+00:00

Thank you Jade, I will try this when I'm in-person at the office tomorrow and report back.
Jade Ng 14,785 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-29T02:06:54.2366667+00:00

Dear @Infinite Loop Victim,

Thank you again for your time, patience, and cooperation. I look forward to hearing from you.
Infinite Loop Victim 20 Reputation points

2026-07-29T14:22:07.63+00:00

Thank you for your patience! There was one keychain item associated with my employer and two associated with Microsoft. The Microsoft items did not let us delete them with an admin password either, but the employer one did let us delete it. With just the employer one deleted we restarting the device, successfully logged into Word, and then successfully logged into OneDrive! So it appears it was my employer's certificate messing everything up. Thanks so much!
Jade Ng 14,785 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-30T02:30:41.48+00:00

Dear @Infinite Loop Victim,

Thank you for your update!

I am delighted to hear that your issue has been successfully resolved, and I am pleased to have been able to assist you.

If you see my reply bring helpful information, please kindly accept it as an answer and vote it up by your original account, which raised this question. Once marked, it will automatically pin to top. As other users will also search information in this community, your valuable vote up will definitely also help other users who have similar queries easily to find the correct channel and useful information more quickly.

Should you encounter any further concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, or feel free to create a new post so that other moderators can provide support.

Thank you very much for your valuable time and your cooperation.