Bypass E5 OneDrive 10GB Limit: Mount SharePoint

This guide resolves the 10GB personal OneDrive quota limitation on Microsoft 365 Developer E5 subscriptions by leveraging the 1.24TB tenant-wide SharePoint storage pool.

It completely bypasses native macOS OneDrive client issues, such as fileproviderd circular deadlocks, 0% progress freezes, and high CPU spikes during large file transfers, by delivering a native-like virtual drive with automated space reclamation (on-demand caching) and high-throughput streaming uploads.

1. Prerequisites and Installation

Mounting a cloud drive as a local filesystem via Rclone on macOS requires a FUSE framework. FUSE-T is recommended because it runs purely in user space and eliminates the need to reboot into Recovery Mode or lower system security settings.

Step 1: Install FUSE-T

1. Visit the FUSE-T GitHub Releases page.
2. Download and run the latest fuse-t-macos-installer-x.x.x.pkg installer.

Step 2: Install Rclone with Mount Support via MacPorts

The default rclone port in MacPorts does not include mount capabilities. Install it with the +mount variant:

sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install rclone +mount

2. Configure Rclone with SharePoint

Authorize and bind the dedicated SharePoint site using Rclone’s built-in configuration wizard:

1. Start the wizard:

   rclone config

2. Configuration Prompts:

   • Enter n to create a new remote, and name it sp (or whatever you want).
   • Storage>: Find Microsoft OneDrive and choose it (handles both OneDrive and SharePoint).
   • client_id> / client_secret>: Press Enter to leave blank (uses default application credentials).
   • region>: Enter 1 (Microsoft Cloud Global).
   • tenant>: Press Enter to leave blank (not needed for interactive personal OAuth).
   • Edit advanced config?>: Enter n.
   • Use web browser to automatically authenticate?>: Enter y. A browser tab will open automatically. Sign in with your E5 tenant credentials and grant the requested permissions.

3. Select the Target SharePoint Site:

   • Return to the terminal after successful browser authorisation. When prompted for the storage type, enter 2 (SharePoint site).
   • Rclone will list all SharePoint sites in your tenant. Enter the corresponding numerical index for your target team site.
   • Select the document library by entering the numerical index for Documents or just use the root one.

4. Save and Exit:

   • Review the configuration summary, enter y to confirm, and enter q to quit the wizard.

3. Manual Mount & Connectivity Test (Optional)

Configuring the local Virtual File System (VFS) cache creates a seamless experience equivalent to OneDrive’s “Files On-Demand”: files appear as 0-byte local placeholders, and cached files are automatically cleared from local storage after upload or playback.

Step 1: Create the Local Mount Point

mkdir -p ~/SharePoint

Step 2: Execute the Mount Command

Run the following optimized mount command in the foreground to test connectivity and review terminal logs:

/opt/local/bin/rclone mount sp: ~/SharePoint \
  --vfs-cache-mode full \
  --vfs-cache-max-age 12h \
  --vfs-cache-max-size 250G \
  --vfs-cache-poll-interval 1m \
  --vfs-write-back 5s \
  --onedrive-chunk-size 125M \
  --buffer-size 64M \
  --volname "SharePoint" \
  --exclude "._*" \
  --exclude ".DS_Store" \
  --rc \
  --rc-web-gui \
  --rc-web-gui-no-open-browser \
  --rc-addr 127.0.0.1:5572 \
  --rc-no-auth

Key Parameters Explained

4. Configure Automated Startup at Login (macOS Launchd)

Use macOS’s native launchd service to maintain persistent, background mounting upon system login.

Step 1: Generate the LaunchAgent Configuration

Run the following command in Terminal to create the agent configuration file:

mkdir -p ~/SharePoint
mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents
mkdir -p ~/.config/rclone

cat << EOF > ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.rclone.sharepoint.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.rclone.sharepoint</string>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
        <key>PATH</key>
        <string>/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin</string>
    </dict>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/opt/local/bin/rclone</string>
        <string>mount</string>
        <string>sp:</string>
        <string>$HOME/SharePoint</string>
        <string>--vfs-cache-mode</string>
        <string>full</string>
        <string>--vfs-cache-max-age</string>
        <string>12h</string>
        <string>--vfs-cache-max-size</string>
        <string>250G</string>
        <string>--vfs-cache-poll-interval</string>
        <string>1m</string>
        <string>--vfs-write-back</string>
        <string>5s</string>
        <string>--onedrive-chunk-size</string>
        <string>125M</string>
        <string>--buffer-size</string>
        <string>64M</string>
        <string>--volname</string>
        <string>SharePoint</string>
        <string>--exclude</string>
        <string>._*</string>
        <string>--exclude</string>
        <string>.DS_Store</string>
        <string>--rc</string>
        <string>--rc-web-gui</string>
        <string>--rc-web-gui-no-open-browser</string>
        <string>--rc-addr</string>
        <string>127.0.0.1:5572</string>
        <string>--rc-no-auth</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>$HOME/.config/rclone/sharepoint-mount.log</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>$HOME/.config/rclone/sharepoint-mount.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

Step 2: Activate the Service

# Unload previous service to prevent launchd from immediately respawning rclone
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.rclone.sharepoint.plist 2>/dev/null

# Terminate any existing manual instances and cleanly unmount
killall rclone 2>/dev/null
diskutil unmount force ~/SharePoint 2>/dev/null || umount -f ~/SharePoint 2>/dev/null

# Load and start the background service
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.rclone.sharepoint.plist

The SharePoint drive will now automatically mount in Finder upon every login.

5. Maintenance and Operations

Manually Free All Local Space Immediately

To instantly wipe the local cache without affecting cloud files, delete the local cache and metadata folders:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/rclone/vfs*

Safe Unmounting

Do not drag the mounted volume to the Trash. Unmount according to how the drive was launched:

• If running via Launchd background service (Section 4): Unload the service directly. This terminates Rclone cleanly and automatically unmounts the volume:

  launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.rclone.sharepoint.plist

• If running manually via Terminal (Section 3): Unmount the mount point directly:

  diskutil unmount ~/SharePoint 2>/dev/null || umount ~/SharePoint

  (If the process is busy or unresponsive, terminate it with killall rclone)

Inspecting and Truncating Logs

By default, Rclone runs at the NOTICE logging level, keeping log file growth negligible (typically under 1MB per year) while routine transfers are monitored via the Web GUI.

To view live log output in Terminal:

tail -f ~/.config/rclone/sharepoint-mount.log

If you ever wish to instantly truncate and free log file space without restarting the background service:

: > ~/.config/rclone/sharepoint-mount.log

Preventing AppleDouble (._*) and .DS_Store Infinite Sync Loops

When copying files with extended attributes (such as quarantine flags or Finder tags) to a non-native filesystem, macOS automatically generates companion metadata files prefixed with ._ (AppleDouble format). SharePoint frequently rejects or alters these tiny metadata files, causing size mismatches that make Rclone endlessly retry uploading them every polling interval, congesting upload bandwidth.

1. Purge Stuck Companion Files from Local Cache:

   If your current transfer queue is stuck retrying ._* or .DS_Store files, delete them from the local cache to allow legitimate files to proceed:

   find ~/Library/Caches/rclone/vfs -name "._*" -delete 2>/dev/null
   find ~/Library/Caches/rclone/vfs -name ".DS_Store" -delete 2>/dev/null
   find ~/Library/Caches/rclone/vfsMeta -name "._*" -delete 2>/dev/null
   find ~/Library/Caches/rclone/vfsMeta -name ".DS_Store" -delete 2>/dev/null

2. Disable .DS_Store Generation on Network Stores (System Optimisation):

   Run this native macOS command to instruct Finder never to create .DS_Store files on network shares and FUSE mounts, then restart Finder to apply the change immediately:

   defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool TRUE
   killall Finder

   You can verify that the setting took effect (should output 1):

   defaults read com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores

Preventing SharePoint Version Bloat (Critical)

1. Navigate to your SharePoint site document library in a web browser.
2. Click the gear icon (Settings) → Library settings → More library settings → Versioning settings.
3. Under Document Version History, select No versioning and click OK at the bottom.

6. Architectural Trade-offs & Ideal Workflows

You’ve finally broken free from OneDrive’s sickeningly broken behaviour of SharePoint on macOS, a disaster born from corporate politics between Apple and Microsoft. With this setup in place, here is what you’ve gained:

1. Large Media & Video Streaming:
   Unlike the native OneDrive client, which often forces downloading entire multi-gigabyte files before playback, Rclone with --vfs-cache-mode full and --buffer-size 64M handles byte-range requests seamlessly. Media players like IINA, Infuse, or VLC can seek anywhere across a 50GB 4K video with near-instant buffering. The local cache automatically evicts stale chunks after 12 hours, freeing SSD space automatically.
2. Eliminating macOS Sync Deadlocks:
   Bypasses Apple’s fileproviderd architecture completely, eliminating circular upload freezes, 0% progress bugs, and high CPU lockups during large transfers.
3. True Cloud Capacity:
   Unlocks the tenant-wide SharePoint storage pool, bypassing Microsoft’s strict 10GB personal OneDrive quota on Developer E5 accounts.

However, if you want to make your life a lot easier, pay close attention to this:

1. High Overhead on Thousands of Small Files:
   Uploading a single 10GB video requires one continuous stream that saturates available network bandwidth. In contrast, copying a directory containing 30,000 fragmented files (such as node_modules or unpacked game assets) requires tens of thousands of individual REST API calls to Microsoft Graph. This creates severe network round-trip latency and quickly triggers HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) rate limiting from Microsoft.

2. SharePoint Property Promotion (The Metadata Injection Trap):
   SharePoint is an enterprise document collaboration engine rather than transparent object storage. When certain files are uploaded, SharePoint’s internal parsers crack open the file and inject tenant metadata, schema properties, UUIDs, or security wrapper headers. This alters the file’s binary contents and changes its size by a few hundred bytes. Rclone immediately flags this discrepancy as corrupted on transfer: sizes differ and endlessly retries uploading them at 100% every minute.

   Formats altered by SharePoint include:

   • Microsoft Office Documents: .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .vsdx (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio)
   • Macro & Template Files: .docm, .xlsm, .pptm, .dotx
   • Web & Markup Files: .html, .htm, .aspx, .shtml (Game manuals, offline documentation, web rips)
   • Outlook Message Files: .msg, .eml
   • Tagged Images: .tif, .tiff
   • Internet Shortcuts: .url, .website
   • PDFs: .pdf (in tenants with Microsoft Purview sensitivity labeling or metadata policies enabled)

   NOTE

   Standard images (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp, .gif, .heic), video/audio media (.mkv, .mp4, .mov, .flac, .mp3), disc images (.iso, .dmg), and compressed archives (.zip, .7z, .tar) have no SharePoint document parsers attached to them. They are stored bit-for-bit identical with zero modification.

The Golden Rule: Large Files Directly, Small Files Zipped

• Directly to Mount: Movies, TV series, photo libraries, disc images (.iso, .dmg), virtual machine disks, and pre-packaged archives.
• Zip First Locally: Code repositories, game installation directories, emulator ROM collections, and folders containing thousands of small files or HTML manuals. Compress them into a single .zip or .7z file before moving them to the mount. This avoids API rate limiting, preserves byte-for-byte integrity, and guarantees maximum upload throughput.