SharePoint in the Browser vs OneDrive/File Explorer: Which Should Your Team Use?

Neither option is wrong, but they suit different tasks — the browser is better for occasional access and collaboration, while syncing via OneDrive/File Explorer suits people who live in their files all day, provided libraries are kept small and well organised.

We get asked this a lot, usually after something has gone wrong: a laptop full of "sync errors," a shared drive that's mysteriously stopped updating, or a folder structure that's ballooned out of control. SharePoint and OneDrive sync are genuinely useful, but they're also one of the most commonly misconfigured parts of Microsoft 365 in the businesses we see across Hertfordshire and North London.

What's actually happening under the hood

It helps to understand that SharePoint and OneDrive are, underneath, the same technology. A SharePoint site has document libraries; your personal OneDrive is essentially your own private SharePoint site. When you "sync" a SharePoint library, you're using the OneDrive sync client to create a live, two-way mirrored copy of that library's files on your local hard drive, inside File Explorer (or Finder on a Mac).

Accessing SharePoint "in the browser" means you're working directly against the online copy — nothing is duplicated onto your device, though you can still open files locally in desktop apps like Word or Excel via the browser's "Open in Desktop App" option.

Comparing the two approaches

When browser access makes sense

• Staff who dip into a library occasionally — HR looking up a policy document, a director checking a project folder once a week.
• Shared libraries used by many people across departments, where you want everyone working from a single online version with proper permissions and metadata.
• Larger libraries with thousands of files, where syncing the whole thing to every laptop would eat disk space for no benefit.
• Anyone using a shared or non-company device, where you don't want files copied to local storage.

When syncing makes sense

• People who work with the same set of files all day, every day, and want them to behave like a normal folder in File Explorer or on the desktop.
• Teams who need offline access — for example, staff who work on site with clients and don't always have a reliable connection.
• Integration with older line-of-business software that expects to read and write to a mapped drive or local folder rather than a browser.

How to sync a SharePoint library properly

1. Open the SharePoint site in the browser and navigate to the document library.
2. Click Sync in the toolbar — this launches the OneDrive sync client if it isn't already running.
3. Confirm you want to sync, and let it complete the initial download.
4. In File Explorer, right-click the synced folder and enable Files On-Demand where possible, so files only download to the device when opened rather than consuming disk space permanently.
5. Keep the library reasonably sized (Microsoft's own guidance recommends against syncing extremely large libraries or ones with very deep folder structures — check current limits on learn.microsoft.com as they're periodically revised).

When sync causes problems

In our experience, most sync headaches come from a small number of avoidable causes:

• Syncing everything to everyone "just in case." This leads to laptops full of gigabytes of files nobody's opened in years, slower machines, and confusion about which copy is current.
• Multiple people editing the same file offline at once. SharePoint handles simultaneous online co-authoring well; it handles two people editing offline copies of the same file badly, often creating conflicting versions that need manually merging.
• Very deep or oddly named folder structures. Long file paths, special characters, or folder names ending in a full stop can cause sync errors that are genuinely painful to diagnose.
• Old, personal OneDrive habits carried over. Someone used to saving everything to "Documents" on their PC starts doing the same in a synced SharePoint library, and structure and permissions get muddled.
• Sync client left broken for weeks. A paused or errored sync client silently stops updating files, and nobody notices until a colleague asks why they can't see a document.

A worked example

A 15-person marketing agency syncs its entire "Client Projects" SharePoint library — hundreds of gigabytes across dozens of clients — to every laptop in the business "for convenience." Laptops start running low on disk space, sync errors pile up in the OneDrive icon nobody checks, and two team members end up with conflicting versions of a client proposal because both edited it on a train with no signal. The fix, in our experience, is usually to sync only the specific client folders each person actually works on, enable Files On-Demand everywhere, and default new starters to browser access with syncing only added when there's a genuine need.

Recommendations

• Default new starters to browser access; add syncing only when there's a genuine, ongoing need.
• Sync specific folders or sub-libraries rather than entire sites where possible.
• Enable Files On-Demand as standard.
• Review synced libraries periodically as part of your wider IT housekeeping — this is something a good Managed IT provider should be doing as part of routine support.
• Remember that neither browser access nor sync is a backup — see our separate guide on whether Microsoft 365 backs up your data.

Related questions

• Does Microsoft 365 back up your data?
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard vs Business Premium
• How to switch IT providers without disruption

If your team's SharePoint and OneDrive setup has grown organically rather than by design, it's usually worth a proper look. Our Microsoft 365 team can review how your libraries are structured and synced, or you can get in touch for a chat.