Why not use the offline status on File Explorer?

Instead of having to sync files before they can be opened, why not use the Offline Status flag (as Microsoft once did) to tell if files are unsync’ed? This would make things much simpler.

The offline files API that Microsoft isn’t a good fit for odrive. Are you requesting this because you would like to see thumbnails for placeholders, like in this request?

I am not concerned about there being an icon. I am concerned about how hard it is to open cloud files. Have to sync them and then open them which does not work inside Office applications.

Hi Bruce,
I see. Office should be using an instance of Explorer to provide the file picker interface which includes our extensions. You can see that other apps have this (like Wordpad), but Office is doing something funky with the instance it creates and our extensions are excluded, which means you can’t right-click on the items to sync them within the Office file picker.

Now, I know this is not a perfect solution, but there is a powershell-based utility I made for folks that are visually impaired that allows them to better navigate the sync command and understand the actions it is performing. A benefit of this alternate sync UI is that it is accessible within the Office file pickers. You may find it useful for now.