How to Stop OneDrive Downloading Specific Folders to Android Mobile

nige0090 on 23/03/2021 - 20:04

I've got a Microsoft Family 365 subscription.
I want to backup my photos, from a file server, to my account's 1TB of OneDrive storage.
This was easy, move the photo directory under the OneDrive folder on the file server.
And on my work laptop, in OneDrive under Account > "Choose Folders", I deselected that photos folder, because I don't want to sync those hundreds of GB on my laptop.

I also don't want to sync those hundreds of GB to my mobile phone.
But, I can't find an equivalent "Choose folders" setting in the Android client.
Am I not seeing an obvious setting in Android OneDrive?
How do I stop OneDrive from downloading this folder to my phone??

The alternative, may be to create a dummy Microsoft account, which only gets used for onedrive on the file server.

Thanks,
nige0090

Computing

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Comments

  • andrek on 23/03/2021 - 20:08

    Android's OneDrive app doesn't download files by default. Each folder or file has "make available offline" switch. You need to turn that on to have those folders or files to be available locally.

  • nige0090 on 23/03/2021 - 20:35

    So what I see in Android OneDrive, are just thumbnails for files in the cloud, which are downloaded on demand (i.e. when you try to open them)???

    • Last Seen on 23/03/2021 - 21:26

      That's correct.

      You can check by tapping on one of those photos, then the 3 stacked dots in top right hand corner.

      the option to "make available offline" should be toggled off (grey).

      If you can't see the 3 dots I mentioned, tap once on the photo itself, to reveal

    • AustriaBargain on 23/03/2021 - 21:38

      This is the way for mobile OneDrive. You want the thumbnails to show up instantly, not the files themselves. On your PC you might want to set certain folders to auto download.

  • nige0090 on 23/03/2021 - 22:04

    Ok, thanks for explaining. It does make sense.

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