If you’re using Microsoft 365 to store and share files, there’s a good chance you’ve hit the Sync button on a SharePoint library at some point.
It made sense at the time. You wanted your files available on your machine, and syncing them felt like the obvious way to do it.
But syncing everything to every device isn’t really the modern way – and for most day-to-day tasks, you probably don’t need to sync anything at all.
In this guide, we look at how modern syncing works in SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive, when it genuinely makes sense to work with files locally, and a simpler approach that keeps your files accessible across all your devices.
Most of the time in Microsoft 365, you don’t need to sync
SharePoint and Teams are built for secure collaboration. When a site or team is properly set up, the right people already have access to the files they need.
That means there’s no need to download files to your machine just to open them. You can work directly in the browser, or in the full desktop version of Excel, or PowerPoint, whichever you prefer.
Working this way keeps everything secure, well-governed, and consistent. There’s one version of every file, and everyone is always looking at it.
But, sometimes working with files locally makes sense
Of course, there are times when having files available offline is genuinely useful.
If you’re travelling on a train with no Wi-Fi, or staying somewhere with a poor connection, it’s worth syncing the files you need before you leave so you can keep working. Any changes you make will sync back once you’re online again.
Meanwhile, local access is also useful for software that needs to work with files directly on your machine, such as CAD tools, video editing software, or music production applications.
The old way: Use the Sync button
If you’ve used SharePoint for a while, you’ll be familiar with the Sync button on a document library. Clicking it would sync that library to a folder on your local machine.
It works, but it had one significant limitation: it only synced to that one device. If you moved to a different machine, the files weren’t there.
The modern way: Use Add shortcut to OneDrive
The better approach is to use Add shortcut to OneDrive instead.
The key difference is that a shortcut follows you. Once you’ve added it to OneDrive, it becomes available across all your signed-in devices – your laptop, tablet, and phone. It also appears in your OneDrive web view, so it sits alongside your other files in one familiar place.
You can still do everything you’d normally do: create folders, upload files, move and copy documents, rename things, and share with colleagues. The difference is that you can do all of it from your OneDrive, regardless of which device you’re on.
And when you stop using a particular folder regularly, you can remove the shortcut just as easily.
A practical example: uploading from your phone
One of the most useful things about OneDrive shortcuts is how they work on mobile.
If you’ve added a shortcut to a SharePoint folder on your phone, you can upload photos, videos, or scanned documents directly into the right place, without having to navigate through SharePoint sites and libraries to find it.
That’s handy for anything you’re capturing on the go: photos from a site visit, a scanned form or footage from an event.
And Add shortcut to OneDrive works inside Office applications
OneDrive shortcuts are also recognised by Microsoft Office. When you create a new document in Word or PowerPoint, you can select your shortcut location directly from the Save dialogue box.
That means you’re saving straight into your SharePoint or Teams location, without any extra steps, and without having to think about where the file is going.
Our simple rule for Microsoft 365
If you take one thing from this guide, let it be this:
- Use OneDrive shortcuts for access: A consistent way to reach those shared locations across all your devices, and a familiar starting point for saving new documents.
It’s a small change to how you work, but it means you get the best of both worlds: the security and governance of SharePoint, with the flexibility to work the way you always have in Microsoft Office.
Next time you reach for the Sync button, try adding a shortcut to OneDrive instead.
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