In June 2021, Microsoft announced several major updates to OneDrive on macOS, including an update to Files On-Demand. (Files On-Demand) The new feature is better integrated with macOS and will also help enable new features like Known Folder Move for macOS. As of January 12, Microsoft began rolling out Files On-Demand for all customers using macOS 12.1 or later.
Users have an overview of all files, but they are only loaded onto the device when called. With the latest updates, users can also see all of their files in the Finder in the Locations section of the sidebar and get new information about each file. Files have the following statuses in the Finder.
The new “Files on Demand” requires APFS as the file system. The first version of Files On-Demand for macOS was released in 2018. Since then, it has been rolled out to all users of macOS 10.14 (Mojave) or later. It is also important for the future: macOS 12.2 will be the last version that supports the classic Files On-Demand.
Since the new program is more integrated into macOS, it will be supported by Apple in the long term. The first release of Files On-Demand was based on a number of technologies that are now obsolete. The move to the new platform allows Microsoft to continue supporting this feature for years to come. For future macOS versions this means:
Information from Microsoft:
- Files On-Demand is enabled by default for all users and cannot be disabled.
- Devices are automatically migrated to the new Files On-Demand once they receive a macOS update. You cannot delay this update without also delaying an update for macOS.
- Both our standalone and App Store versions of OneDrive will behave the same.
- Users running a developer or beta version of macOS will have the same experience as a release version of macOS.
It may be important for users to look at this post. In the future, the path is actually fixed and cannot be changed, the new “Sync Root” is always in the user directory. If you want to change something about it, look at the post.