Properly support the macOS file system (special characters, aliases, symbolic links, case sensativity, etc.)
OneDrive is 99% useless on a Mac because the macOS file system is not properly supported:
1) Files are limited to Windows naming conventions. I't impractical to rename 100's of files to complete a sync
2) Aliases get copied as unusable files and symbolic links are ignored.
3) If the drive is formatted as one of Apple's/unix's case-sensitive formats, they're unusable with OneDrive.
These are the deal killers, items like support for tags, etc. would be nice also.
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14 comments
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Anonymous
commented
Like others here, I was finally excited to give Microsoft my business again. This is an absolute deal breaker. Can't be renaming thousands of files, let alone for an activity that should provide peace-of-mind like backing up my work. If not fixed in short order, will certainly have to migrate away from Microsoft.
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TGBX
commented
This isn't as simple as people are making it out to be. Okay, OneDrive syncs up a file with wacky characters, symlinks, etc. What happens on other devices? What happens on a Windows computer when the file doesn't sync down because Windows doesn't support the character? What happens to symlinks on Windows? What happens to symlinks on a Mac when the target doesn't exist on the other computer? OneDrive could support all the characters in the world. But what are you going to do with the file on destination computers/devices that don't?
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Anonymous
commented
+1 unsupported characters are a deal-breaker behavior in using this cloud storage in our environment.
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Anonymous
commented
I just had the very tedious task of individually renaming files for OneDrive from my Mac in order to allow syncing. There should be an automated rename function available as I understand there to be for Windows.
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Chan Avila
commented
OneDrive for Business in Mac should also have the rename function similar to the Windows version to avoid users having to manually rename each file.
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Shawn
commented
I agree - I just bulk copied over my dropbox folder to One Drive and One Drive is freaking out (and consequently so is my computer) because I have a slash or a dash in some of my thousands of files. But it won't even let me change the file names because every time I fix one file it then parses through every single file again - sending me notifications of the number of files that it has counted. It won't even let me upload the non-problematic files until I fix all the files with unrecognizable characters - but I can't fix those because One Drive is counting and recounting them, leaving me to stare at the Mac beachball. Finally, One Drive just surrendered and crashed. Ironically, almost all of my files are Microsoft Word files that accept "/" symbols on a Mac. This should not be a major feature of a leading tech company in 2020.
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David Willcox
commented
We often have files that have special characters. Either we have a leading space, or a ? or / from files downloaded from the internet. It would be great to handle all modern file systems.
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Anonymous
commented
I am "prisonnier" and I will wait until the end of my money
I will look for a convinient solution to eliminate Microsoft
1To of "unappropriate symbols" when Aple name are so natural and easy to remenber.
I use Word since 1987 (version 3) but as an other comment I will say Bye Bye -
Ann
commented
Unbelievable. Was all set to give Microsoft more of my business for the first time in years-- until I learnt that OneDrive would not accept thousands of my file names. Goodbye Microsoft!
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Myk
commented
I have hundreds of thousands of files OneDrive tags as error- not going to rename them to fit some idea that a file must look like X. the file is valid on Mac, Linux and in some case even on Windows but says bad in OneDrive. Keep in mind you should only be making a copy of the file not trying to data mine it to see what it contains. Just store the file. I've never had a backup program of any kind tell me that my file naming convention was bad. I've been in IT for 25+ years, I've seen it all, this is the worst implementation of trying to control every little thing we do.
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Gian C. Bozano
commented
I fully agree, it is crazy being limited to those old file name rules. I have to look for another solution, of course I will not rename 100s of files.
Gian -
Rob
commented
The fact that MS drives people here to "vote" for this, as if there's even a question about whether they should do it or not, is off-the-charts ridiculous. There is no other cloud service — no other modern technology company, I'd venture — still using 1990s-style file-name rules.
@OneDrive actually answered a tweet about this by providing a link to this page. Really? Go vote on whether or not we should stop using 30-year-old file structure? REALLY?
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Donnie
commented
You are right! Come on MS! It’s 2019
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Roy Leban
commented
DropBox never complains that the name of a file contains a special character — it just makes it work. I'm trying to move from DropBox to OneDrive and I'm told I have to rename 165 files?!
