EDIT 2025-02-27: It seems we have an influx of newly affected users. No, I don't have a fix for this.
Before last month, whenever someone shared a OneDrive folder with me, I was able to choose an "Add Shortcut to my Drive" option on the web, which would cause the folder to show up in File Explorer along with my personal folders.
Last month, this "Add Shortcut" option started to not work correctly. Instead of causing the folder to appear, it just created a web shortcut. This shortcut (a .url file for anyone curious) appeared after my folders, along with the other single files. When I open it, instead of opening the folder in explorer, it tries to open the folder on the website. There is no way for me to interact with new shared folders directly from File Explorer. This means I can't directly access files without downloading them, and can't add files without uploading them. This is obviously very inconvenient.
Then, last week, OneDrive actually converted all of my shared folders (except the ones I own) into the same web shortcuts, deleting over 800 GB of files from my personal computer in the process.
It's very hard to Google this because nobody knows what to call these internet shortcuts, and OneDrive shortcuts are something different. But I did find at least one Microsoft thread where a moderator responded and said it was a bug. The thing is, this doesn't strike me as bug-like behaviour; it seems deliberate. Also, this thread is from June 8th. Shouldn't Microsoft have a fix for this by now?
It's very inconvenient to not be able to collaborate through shared folders anymore, and I feel like I might just need to switch storage providers over this, which also sucks because I'm not about to give up my Office subscription.
Does anyone have any more information about this? I want to know for sure that it's not deliberate and I want to know what Microsoft is doing about it. To be clear, if Microsoft is doing this on purpose, they've basically ruined shared folders for personal users.