OneDrive Shared Folders no longer functioning in Windows File Explorer

I have this issue for over 12mths now and MS still havent resolved the issue...

I believe they have deliberately removed this function from the "Family subscription" and now only have it on the "Business subscription" a deliberate ploy by Microsoft to create an inefficient process to access folders and files, so as small business using Microsoft Family, either suck it up or sign up to the business package, which is 10 times the cost.

I finally just gave up and started using DropBox for files and folders that need to be shared with other users. Their file sharing still works just fine. Thanks for nothing MS!

This issue to taking far too long to fix. I'm also starting to think that MS have purposely removed the sync using folders functionality from the Family Subscription.

I use both OneDrive Personal and OneDrive (Business) on my Windows 11 pc.

I can confirm that the business version has folders that can be accessed directly thru file explorer, while Personal has links for shared folders.

I think this is by design, and not an issue of software... I mean, I have 2 onedrive.exe in task manager, it sould work the same way in both accounts! Microsoft change my mind!

Could be by design, only affecting the new users.

The old shares, at least for me, are working normally on Windows Explorer, showing as files. But if I try to share the same folder to another person, then it goes in as a shortcut.

Guys, just move your files over to Google Drive
All you need to do is create shortcuts to "My Drive"
Slightly different but works perfectly fine for me and everyone I am sharing too
I have uninstalled OneDrive now, I dont need to be constantly harassed to back up my desktop, documents and pictures every other day when I reboot my PC.

Any updates on this?

It seems that after the update two or three days ago, OneDrive re-synced all my files, and today, out of nowhere, this issue suddenly occurred.

Has this really still not been fixed? If so, and there’s still no ETA, I’ve been a subscriber for over 10 years, but I’ll be moving to Google Drive.

This problem suddenly occurred to me on 2025.02.20, even during syncing.

The original shared folder has been removed from the local directory, so each of the two PCs using files from the shared folder is creating its own version of the folder.

I've tried removing and reassigning the link to the shared folder, but it does not work.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

One drive unfortunately became useless after this bug or new feature. We moved to dropbox, it has a much better sharing mechanism.

Same here!! Not possible to access a shared folder in Windows file explorer, starting this week!!

I never experienced this issue until today. It's ironic because it looks like it was an old issue that was fixed for some.

The local folder that I had on my own computer which was shared with another person got emptied. First I thought that the content was gone, and I was kind of pissed, but then I checked the online version of the folder and everything was there.

Still, I havent found a way to get my files back locally, but I suspect this might be related to something happening last Friday on my computer where OneDrive was sneakily "processing changes" of more than 1M files in my onedrive.

Onedrive should acknowledge what it is doing to your files before pushing faulty patches messing with your files.

As a paying customer I am not happy about this.

And today this happened to me too.

Well, here is something that may add some "spice" to this discussion on OneDrive shares no longer being accessible through File Explorer (except as links to the OneDrive webpage).

I experienced the same issue, beginning sometime early last summer. The only answer I came up with was to use DropBox (or some other service) for true file sharing.

However, and I don't think I've seen anyone else commenting on this, file shares that are older still work just fine. It's just I can't create new shares that work properly.

Now, if I was really smart, there is probably a way to look into the intimate details of these older shares and perhaps figure out why they are still working. Unfortunately, I'm not that smart.

But maybe someone else who's had this issue is smart enough - at least to know where to start looking! I've a feeling that an answer lies in this.

Yes. This is the same case for me. Older shares work correctly. But if you try to share the same files to somenone new, you get into this issue.

I think this is a new feature/business model for One Drive personal edition. This makes one drive a very bad option for file sharing.

@Todd Franzen My shares are old and they've given up. As Outlook for Mac is almost unusable for multiple accounts, I'm seriously considering Google Workspace now.

I can't believe that this is still happening 8 months later...

I noticed this problem since today too. Not too happy about it..

Exactly the same issue for me. Just started happening this morning

I have the same issue.

For the past few weeks, the shared folders I had been using for months in Windows Explorer have stopped working. They now only appear as shortcuts and not in the tree structure on the left. If I click on them, they open in the web browser.

On the other hand, other shared folders that I have been using for years still work perfectly.

Note: in the shortcut of the shared folder that still working, the Status shows a green checkmark and a little figure. When I hover the mouse over it, it says "Available when Online, Shared". However, for the folders that are giving me problems, when I hover the mouse over them, it says "Available when Online, Shortcut".

Update: I just asked the person who shared the folder that is still working to share a new one with me, and it works! However, the other folders still don't work.

The shared folders that are only added as shortcuts and can only be accessed through the web browser were created on Mac devices. Could this be the cause of the issue?

This has happened to us, need to now find a solution to enable us to work as using the web browser is just not going to work long term. Any suggestions for alternative?

Unfortunately the only alternative is to use another service: I'm using Dropbox. But you will need to pay an extra subscription as the free plan is very limited in space.

WTF? This is still broken nd randomly appears on different computers. Microsoft are incompetent fools who don't understand how their customers use their software.

It's not a Mac issue. It's the same problem on all the Windows machines I've tried it on.

This is impacted our family this morning. All of our shared folders are no longer accessible from OneDrive and we now only get a link to the share via the browser. This is a real pain as working in the browser is far less efficient than using Windows Explorer and the MS desktop apps. @Microsoft - what happened? This is a feature that has been working well for years. What can be done?

My support case was closed yesterday.

Does this mean a fix is iminent, maybe...

It's March 2025 already and you (Microsoft) still have not fixed the problem that you found in June 2024. Something is really wrong with Microsoft.

You should have source control and I suppose you use Git. You should be able to trace back who did that and how to revert back.

Can't you employ qualified software engineers?

When you found out the cause, you should fire the person(s) responsible for this chaos!

The ability to view in File Explorer OneDrive Folders and OneDrive Files shared with me has worked fine for my wife and me until this week when, all of a sudden, the shared folders and files have disappeared from both her and my File Explorer (our own OneDrive folders and files can be viewed in File Explorer just fine). I can access them fine in a web browser, but that interface is unacceptable for our purposes. Based on this thread, this is a long-standing problem that affects some but not all users.

This has become a critical productivity issue for us, and unless we are provided a fix ASAP, we will have to find another solution (presumably with a non-Microsoft product).

I have had the same exact issue for over a week now. It is severely impacting my business and making it almost impossible to work. Will be forced to migrate away from Microsoft products if the issue persists.

Has anyone confirmed if switching over to a business account resolves the issue?

I attempted to test this a couple of days ago, but was unable to even recognize a share I attempted to make from the business account to my personal account or vice versa. No web link or anything. At that point I gave up. Perhaps the sharing only works between different "employee" subaccounts. If anyone else wants to try testing this out, I'd like to know if and how they make it work.

The problem of OneDrive shared folders only being available through a shortcut instead of being available locally in file explorer has just reared it's ugly head in my workflow. I am also concerned that about this issue. Currently this appears to be not all shared folders, but need to do a more in depth exploration when I have computers in the same location to diagnose. Not performance by Microsoft!!

This is a nightmare. I spent two days trying to figure out where my files are disappearing, searching for answers, until I finally came across this. My workflow is based on sharing one MS personal account that I use for Office 365, and which has the terabyte of storage, with another that I use for my PC that doesn't have the extra storage. It worked beautifully for years, and now it is a crisis.

Hi there,

March 7, 2025. I see this is a year old issue. Can we have @microsoft comment on any progress?

Productivity has been cut 90% with this issue.

Thanks,

This has been going on for an unreasonable amount of time. One of the primary purposes of cloud storage is to be able to share and edit files easily. This function is a necessity for a majority of the users and Microsoft has done NOTHING to fix it.

Just happened to me last week. WEAK!

I was going to try this as we started having the same issue with OneDrive. However, once migrating over to Google, our Word docs are formatted incorrectly.

Good day,

I have come upon the same issue last month. Searched everywhere but there seems to be no real solution.
I created a @outlook.com account and for the time, shared the folder there and for the time being it seems to be holding. Let's hope that it sticks, has been going great for the past 3 weeks.

This is not true. My shares are all created with a Microsoft LIVE account. it makes no difference. I cannot require all share recipients to have live accounts as well. LThis was working fine. Where is hte fix for this. Any app than cannot use an internet link, INCLUDING EXCEL!! will not work.

What is the solution to this, my invoicing relies on this.

Rick

Been a problem since June 2024.
More useres impacted November 2024.

Even more in February 2025.

Microsoft idiots have no answers.

SharedFolderOneDriveIssue_Nov.png

Here is unpdate March 2025

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-finally-has-update-on-onedrive-shared-folders-turning-to-internet-shortcut-links/

After about a year it's working again! Have a shared folder with my girlfriend and another with her son. Both were replaced in spring 2024 with the annoying online-link. But at the end of this week we noticed that the links are gone and the shared folders are back! Well, better late than never ...

This might not work for everyone because it shares you own OneDrive instance instead of say, a single folder but here’s a hack that can work:

on target PC:

1. Right click over this pc in file explorer, the select map network drive
2. enter https://d.docs.live.net/[CID] into the drive map field. CID is picked up from the url of your OneDrive folder.
3. select radio button to enter alternate login credentials.
4. use the login used for the originating OneDrive account instead of the target PC’s onedrive

this will connect the entire originating one drive

seems like you could setup a single OneDrive account for folders you want to share, then map all users to that OneDrive so that you’re not sharing one user’s entire OneDrive. Definately a hack that we shouldn’t have to do, but it would work

Can't get this to work - perhaps because I'm not sure what "[CID]" is supposed to be replaced with. Any suggestions?

CID is found the the long string URL that shows up when you go to your onedrive folder using a browser. look for "CID=" copy and paste only the text string that comes between the "=" and the "&" symbol. (x0x0 in example below)

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=root&cid=**x0x0x0x0x0x0**&qt=mru

Also the folder that user is dropped into can be refined so that they only go to a designated folder, however the user will still be able to navigate to any folder on the drive. Example here would be: https://d.docs.live.net/x0x0x0x0/Name_Of_the_folder_to_drop_User_Into/Name_Of_Subfolder

Appears the whole deal is that Microsoft has set security framework up to say that if you're a shared user, they can only reach the drive via browser, whereas if you own the Onedrive being shared you can get to it via file explorer.

Thus if you created a "shared" user in your licensed pack. Put all the folders you wanted to share in that virtual Users OneDrive, then mapped to that OneDrive using the communal logon, you could create a "shared only" environment. Would be balky if you had folders with different user sets. You'd then have to have a oneDrive for each user set. Major Ugly.

This is so unacceptable, breaking a basic functionality upon which work product relies. I am going to be spending days resolving this and will never use one drive as I did before. Hello dropbox! Hi google drive! Seriously, f you guys

Hey, it works! Awkward way to get it done - but definitely an improvement on having to download from the Web every time I need to update something on a shared drive.

Thanks Kurt-R!

A colleague is now finding that when someone else is trying to access a word or excel document he has shared in a folder that they are getting access denied and/or asking them to sign into windows. PDF is fine. I am trying to solve why this is happening. When I share things it is fine.

Same issue here, lost the ability in the past 2 weeks. I spent ages trying to add shortcuts back to explorer, but the links created are resolving to OD on the web. This really stifles productivity.

When can we expect a fix?