#1

OneDrive allows to store files only on cloud without consuming storage on the local machine.
The files still exist and are unchanged, even image previews are still possible without downloading the file. So the OS is getting tricked that these files are completely there, which means when a program is trying to open the file, OneDrive is getting alerted and downloads the file for the program, which will then be accessible.

The problem with Obsidian is that at startup it looks like that it tries to read all the file (maybe for linking the files accordingly), which leads to a complete downloading of all files in the directory.
Is there a opportunity to stop it doing that or giving Obsidian a hint or sth. that the files is only stored on the cloud? There should be a attribute “availability” within the filesystem I guess.

Its something between a bug and feature request, but could maybe solved by a small plugin or sth. so I’m asking here

#2

We are not going to support this. We need your files present, they are the source of truth.

Be careful that these fake files created by Onedrive can break obsidian in other circumstances.

#3

I think the issue here is that you are using the OneDrive default “files on-demand” feature and you definitely do not want to use it. The directions for changing to Always keep on this device is below and easy to do. Note: this works on MacOS and Windows

#4

You only need to download the .md files, not every file. There’s several orders of magnitude difference between forcing download of the entire directory tree, vs. a couple hundred text files. Files on demand is the default setting for many deployments of OneDrive (and Dropbox for that matter) so you are needlessly limiting your use cases by adhering to this position.

#5

I do want to use files on demand. My use case requires it. Nearly every application I’m aware of works just fine with files on demand, Obsidian can too. Download just .md files and the directory without forcing download of all other files, since you only need the .md to build the knowledge graph.