OneDrive Drops Sync Support for Non-NTFS Drives; Microsoft Reveals Why

Microsoft this week suddenly dropped OneDrive file sync support for non-NTFS drives, a move that has seen a lot of complaints from users. Disabling support means that users with FAT32 or ReFS file system-based removable drives won't be able to use OneDrive storage any more.

The Redmond giant made the new change with a new update for OneDrive, and it basically killed file syncing support for all older file systems like exFAT and FAT32 alongside the new ReFS, as pointed by Neowin. With the new update, Microsoft has basically fixed a bug that enabled support for non-NTFS files. Many OneDrive users took to Reddit as well as Microsoft's own community to complain about the move.

After the new OneDrive update, many users started receiving this error message, "The location where you were trying to create OneDrive folder belongs to a drive with unsupported file system. To have OneDrive use a different location, click 'Set up OneDrive' and point OneDrive to a NTFS drive. To use the existing location with OneDrive, you need to format it with NTFS then click 'Set up OneDrive' to configure your account."

The company has now finally offered an explanation for the drop of support. In an emailed statement to Neowin, the company said, "Microsoft OneDrive wants to ensure users have the best possible sync experience on Windows, which is why OneDrive maintains the industry standard of support for NTFS. Microsoft discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem - which was immediately remedied."

Microsoft further added that no other changes have been made to OneDrive. "Nothing has changed in terms of official support and all OneDrive folders will continue to need to be located on a drive with the NTFS filesystem," the company added.

The Redmond giant may have made changes for a greater good but OneDrive users are complaining about the fact that company did not send a warning before making the final changes. Users that synced their OneDrive to file systems such as exFAT, FAT32, or ReFS drive will now have to format their drives to NTFS and then, re-sysnc.