poster about onedrive's files on demand

OneDrive Files On Demand Walk-through

I’m a little late to getting and working with Office 365’s Files On Demand feature. As of now (August, 2017), you can get access only  if you are in the Windows Insider’s Program Fast Ring. I got on it a couple weeks ago and the first thing I did was a OneDrive Files on Demand Walk-through. I’d been eager to see not only Files On Demand, but I wanted to try out the new sharing experiences too.

Further down is a 4-minute video walk-through if you’d like to look at that. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel and get notified anytime I post a new video.

Let’s look at the new OneDrive sync icons first

  • Gone are the green check marks on each folder/file. Now they are plain-looking folders. (I miss them.)
  • There are 3 new icons that are visible only when you open Windows Explorer
  • The icons are the same whether you are on OneDrive for Business or OneDrive (consumer).

This image shows the new icons and what they mean.

Files On Demand icons and what they mean

Online-only files – The cloud icon shows up in Windows Explorer when you select that folder/file. When it’s in this state, it means that particular file/folder hasn’t been opened yet on your computer.

Locally available files – this icon will appear after you open a file/folder and it’ll be available next time without having to have internet access.

Always Available files – you will need to right-click on each file/folder and select ‘always available on this device’. Then you’ll get the solid green filled check mark. You can hold the Ctrl key and multiple-select files!

 

Will All My SharePoint files Sync When First Starting The New Client?

I wondered how the first sync would work and if all the files currently on my computer would still be there, or if I’d need to re-do them.

OneDrive consumer does not have a sync button when logged in the cloud like in Office 365. To check on what what synced, I right-clicked on the white cloud, (on my desktop) went to ‘Settings’, and then checked off what I wanted on my laptop. Clicking in the settings is what starts up the sync process with OneDrive.

With Office 365 and ODFB and SharePoint, I did login online and there is a sync button that I clicked on to check just to see how it worked. It worked as it does now.

 

files on demand first looko

Icons Don’t Appear On All Folders/Files

I have noticed that not all of my OneDrive folders have icons on them. My OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Sites all have one of the icons. But the files and folders in my OneDrive (consumer), do not have them on all folders.

Since this is a preview version, I don’t expect everything to work right and will chalk it up to that. I have left feedback in the Microsoft feedback hub about this.

I am excited about the Files On Demand and new sharing options that are coming out in the Creator’s Update. We’re probably just a month or so away from the release!

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