Hello,
I am a paying Microsoft 365 subscriber and I use OneDrive as my main cloud storage across several computers. I currently store about 562 GB of my 1 TB plan there. On my Mac, OneDrive has been unusable for months and I would like this looked at properly rather than answered with a standard reset article.
Environment:
- Device: MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2021, Apple M1 Pro, 16 GB RAM
- macOS version: Tahoe 26.2
- OneDrive version: latest available (auto-updated). I cannot read the exact build number because the app does not launch far enough to show its About screen.
- Account type: Personal, Microsoft 365 subscription
- OneDrive usage: approx. 562 GB of 1 TB
Symptoms:
- Files On-Demand does not hydrate files. Files show as online-only placeholders in Finder, and when I open or copy them, Finder fails with "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in [folder] can't be read or written. (Error code -36)".
- "Always keep on this device" does not work. Setting it on a folder produces the same failure instead of downloading the content.
- The OneDrive icon is missing from the menu bar. Launching OneDrive from the Applications folder opens the OneDrive folder in Finder instead of starting the app.
- When the client does start, it shows a "You must restart OneDrive to continue" prompt that does not resolve anything after restarting.
What I have already tried, without success:
- Restarting the Mac multiple times
- Uninstalling and reinstalling OneDrive
- Running the OneDrive reset command from inside the app package
- Setting folders to always keep on this device
- Checking that the OneDrive process is actually running in Activity Monitor
The only way I can access my own files right now is downloading them through the browser at onedrive.live.com. That is not what I pay for.
This is not an isolated case. There are multiple public threads describing the same behaviour on macOS Tahoe, on both Apple Support Communities and Microsoft Q&A, including the client quitting silently in the background, Finder hanging on OneDrive folders, and files failing to download. Several of them have no working answer.
What I am asking for:
- Confirmation of whether this is a known issue with the OneDrive client on macOS Tahoe 26.x, and whether a fix is in progress.
- A working procedure to fully remove the client, including any leftover containers and File Provider state, and reinstall it cleanly.
- If there is no fix, tell me directly, so I can plan to move my working files off OneDrive.
I am happy to collect logs or diagnostics, or provide my device serial number, if you tell me exactly what you need.
Thank you,
Dmitriy Shanchenko