Version history option greyed out for OneDrive

Question

A user has a Microsoft 365 E5 license but cannot see the Version History option for files in their own OneDrive, either on the web or in File Explorer. Other users can access it without issues. Has anyone encountered this, or can you suggest troubleshooting steps?

Answer 1

Hi Arshad Shaikh

Since the issue affects only one user and other users can access Version History without any problems, this is less likely to be related to the Microsoft 365 E5 license and may be specific to the user's OneDrive configuration. Version History is supported in OneDrive for Business and can also be controlled through OneDrive/SharePoint versioning settings.

You may want to check the following:

• Check the file is being accessed from its actual OneDrive location rather than the Recent view, a shortcut, or another location with a limited context menu.
• Test with multiple file types (for example, Word, Excel, and PDF files) to determine whether the behavior is file-specific or affects all files.
• Compare the experience in both OneDrive on the web and File Explorer.
• Verify that the OneDrive sync client is running correctly and consider resetting the sync client if needed. Similar issues have been reported where the web version history was available but local integration was not functioning as expected.

If you are the Microsoft 365 administrator and the issue persists after these checks, it may be worth opening a support case with Microsoft and providing screenshots from both OneDrive web and File Explorer, along with the OneDrive sync client version and the affected user's details for further investigation.

For further instructions, you can follow this guide: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn.   

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Answer 2

Hi @Hani-Ng

Sorry for the late reply. I was on leave, so I couldn't respond to your comment earlier.

I checked the behavior on another system as well, and the issue was still persisting at that time. However, after around 2 days, the Version History option started appearing automatically in both OneDrive Web and File Explorer. We did not make any changes from our side, but the issue seems to have resolved itself.

Currently, the only issue remaining is with OneNote. The user is still unable to view the versions of their OneNote Files, even though Version History is working fine for other file types in OneDrive.

Have you come across this behavior before, or could you please suggest any troubleshooting steps specifically for OneNote version history?

Thank you for your support and guidance.

Regards,

Arshad Shaikh