OneDrive for Business Sync Client Change September 2019

Owned by Grosshandler, Mike
Last updated: Dec 30, 2021 by Lyons, Andrew H
2 min read

Since the September 2019 update of Office 365, co-authoring capabilities are no longer available for files synced onto the local machine via the OneDrive for Business (Groove.exe) sync client. With the next generation OneDrive sync client (OneDrive.exe) supplanting the functionality and workloads of the older client, Microsoft will be retiring Groove.exe based coauthoring to remove the constraint of legacy technology, allowing for more functionality and better performance down the line.  

How does this impact me?

If you use the OneDrive for Business (Groove.exe) sync client, you will see the following changes:

  • Locally synced Office document types such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files that are synced by OneDrive for Business (Groove.exe) will no longer allow for co-authoring between multiple users.
    Note: This only affects locally synced files, not files opened directly from a SharePoint URL in a browser.

  • Documents will have multiple entries for the Most Recently Used list, for both the local and SharePoint backed file.

  • Files opened directly from a SharePoint URL while the device is offline, will fail to open.

How do I know if I am using the OneDrive for Business sync client or the OneDrive sync client?

Microsoft describes how to determine this here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Which-version-of-OneDrive-am-I-using-19246eae-8a51-490a-8d97-a645c151f2ba

Workarounds or fixes:

  1. Use the OneDrive sync client for SharePoint workloads The OneDrive Sync Client (OneDrive.exe) is the recommended client for syncing SharePoint content, and will continue to allow for co-authoring capabilities for synced files, along with features and improvements such as Files On-Demand. We recommend all users and organizations move onto the OneDrive sync client.  If you would like assistance upgrading your sync client, please contact your Technical Coordinator (TC).  For more information on deploying the OneDrive sync client see here.

  2. Open the file directly from SharePoint The change above only affects local files synced by OneDrive for Business (Groove.exe). Users that open the Office document directly from SharePoint will continue to be able to coauthor.

  3. Stay on a version of Office prior to September 2019 (not recommended) Versions of Office prior to the September monthly update will continue to have the co-authoring capabilities. However, this method is not recommended as the rest of the Office Suite will no longer get the latest features, bug-fixes and improvements. In addition, not up-to-date versions of Office 365 will receive limited support.

More information is available at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4496841/how-to-enable-co-authoring-for-onedrive-synced-files-in-office-365.