OneDrive for Business Tips

Avoid common problems with OneDrive for Business Tips. I explain several OneDrive gotchas and some tips.

OneDrive for Business tips

OneDrive for Business

If you have a Microsoft Business Standard (or higher) license, you get 1TB storage in your OneDrive. This is compared to Google Workplace where your storage limit is combined with your email.

You can check how much space you’ve used by logging into OneDrive online and checking the bottom left hand side menu.

There are other limits and quirks that can cause problems using OneDrive for Business. One of the common problems I have run into is accidentally overuse of devices so you can’t add a new computer. With your business license, you can add Microsoft Office (including OneDrive) on a total of 5 computers.

If you get a new computer and no longer have the old computer you need to remove it from your list of devices under your Microsoft 365 account. The easiest way to do this is to log onto portal.office.com/account. Click on View apps and devices. You will need to have the computer name of the old computer (example DESKTOP-OLD) to remove.

Folder Options

Recently I was helping a client with some OneDrive for Business problems. I created a Test folder and loaded some dummy data. And I colour coded the folder so I could easily find it. The client asked me how I did that.

From the OneDrive portal, click on My Files to view your folders. Right click the folder to show all the options. Way at the bottom you’ll find where you can change the folder colour.

Also on the options you can Share, copy the link and check permissions to see who you have shared the folder with.

Remember you two types of share options: read only or edit. The default is read only.

Share and File Name Limits

One of the problems I recently ran into with a client is the limit on how many items she could share from OneDrive with her employee. “You can’t share this item because too many items in the folder” popped up.

The folder she wanted to share contained more than 50,000 items. The only way to work around this is break up the original folder in to smaller folders and then share those.

Another gotcha are the File Name Limits. This explanation is straight from Microsoft:

The entire decoded file path, including the file name, can’t contain more than 400 characters for OneDrive for home, OneDrive for work or school and SharePoint in Microsoft 365. The limit applies to the combination of the folder path and file name after decoding.

  • For example, if the file URL in SharePoint is https://www.contoso.com/sites/marketing/documents/Shared%20Documents/Promotion/Some%20File.xlsx, the limit applies to “sites/marketing/documents/Shared Documents/Promotion/Some File.xlsx.”
  • Likewise, if the file URL in OneDrive is https://contoso-my.sharepoint.com/personal/meganb_contoso%20_com/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fmeganb%5Fcontoso%5Fcom%2FDocuments%2FContracts%2FVendor%20Quotations/Some%20File.xlsx, the limit applies to “personal/meganb_contoso_com/Documents/Contracts/Vendor Quotations/Some File.xlsx.”

In addition to the above, if files are synced to a PC or Mac, the following limitations apply:

  • Each segment of the path (a segment is a file name or folder name like “Promotion” or “Some File.xlsx” in the examples above) can’t be more than 255 characters due to operating system limitations.
  • The length of the OneDrive root folder (e.g. C:\users\meganb\OneDrive – Contoso) + the relative path of the file (up to 400 chars) cannot be more than 520 characters.

Complete list of all OneDrive limitations here.

Problems synching?

Files not synching? Besides the too many computers problem, there are a number of reasons why you can’t synch your files.

How big is your hard drive? If you have 500GB of data in the OneDrive cloud and only a 256GB hard drive, you will not be able to synch. You can choose what folders you really need and only synch those. Open the OneDrive app on your computer and click on the Settings gear icon. Then click on Account. Then unclick Make All Files Available.

From that screen you can also choose which folders to make visible if you only want some key folders.

Another common synching problem: network speed. If you have 500GB of data to synch (particularly for the first time) and you are using slow wireless it will take a long time. Best to hard wire to the network for synch speed.

Running out of room in OneDrive?

Let’s say you’ve grown business quickly, you now have multiple employees and you filled up your OneDrive space. Then it’s time to move to SharePoint. Think of OneDrive as your own personal little filing cabinet. SharePoint is the big multi-drawered filing cabinet everyone in the office shares.

SharePoint comes with 1TB storage PLUS 10GB per licensed user. If you have 5 Microsoft Business Standard licenses your SharePoint limit is 1.5TB. Plus you can add on more storage as a separate purchase. More details on SharePoint Limits here.

Setting up SharePoint with permissions and all the other options usually requires an expert.