Group Policy no longer available

Microsoft has removed the OneDrive group policy Exclude specific kinds of folders from being uploaded with OneDrive version 24.091.0505.0001, which was still available in version 24.086.0428.0003.

Why?

I have updated my PowerPoint workshop slides to the latest version. This is already the preparatory work for the half-day workshop at Infinty 365, where I talk to the participants about the OneDrive group policies. I think there are still a few places available …
I also tried out what you could use this group policy for and realized that this group policy does not work at all. I informed the OneDrive product group about this and the omission could be the effect.

Microsoft writes the following about this group policy:

This setting lets you enter keywords to prevent the OneDrive sync app (OneDrive.exe) from uploading certain folders to OneDrive or SharePoint. You can enter complete names, such as „Projects“ or use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard character to represent a series of characters.

If you enable this setting, the sync app doesn’t upload new folders that match the keywords you specified. New folders that match the keywords won’t be uploaded.

No errors appear for the skipped folders, and the folders remain in the local OneDrive folder.

What is this group policy needed for?

This is not so easy to explain. In Windows, we have the option of excluding folders from synchronization in the settings. Unfortunately, this exclusion is faulty in certain situations and I always advise against it in training courses/workshops.(You need a Workshop? Or a Story Teller Session? Then you should contact me.)

The OneDrive group policy Exclude certain types of folders from uploading can do something similar. Namely to exclude an entire folder/subfolder and files within it from being uploaded to the cloud. However, this is a group policy for devices and not for users. And it only takes effect when new folders corresponding to the key term are created.

Use case?

If you look at the implementation of OneDrive, even with the backup function for documents, images and desktop switched on, then a folder for temporary items is left out for many users. And no, I don’t want to store files in the download folder. For example, corporate IT can specify that a folder corresponding to a certain keyword is not synchronized to the cloud, even though it is below OneDrive. This makes it easy for users to navigate. Want an example?

1. IT agrees on the key term „_Not Synced„
2. Group policy is rolled out
3. Users are informed
4. Users create a new folder with the name „_Not Synced“ under OneDrive

From this point on, the user can create or copy any files and folders in this folder and these files will not be synchronized. There is only one thing for users to bear in mind: these files are not backed up if the computer fails.

As noted above, this does not (currently) work. The admx/adml files no longer contain any information. I will keep you informed when this group policy is reintroduced.