Microsoft is retiring OneDrive File Fetch service

Microsoft has announced that starting July 31, 2020, the OneDrive app will no longer be able to fetch files. The change is reflected in a new support post.The post reveals the following details:

After July 31, 2020, you will no longer be able to fetch files from your PC. However, you can sync files and folders to OneDrive and then access those files from your web browser or your phone. To automatically sync the Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders on your PC, you can turn on OneDrive PC folder backup.

If you are nor familiar with the Fetch file service, it is a special feature that allows users of the OneDrive desktop app to access their files on that PC from another computer by going to the OneDrive website. It also allows accessing network locations if they're included in the PC's libraries or mapped as drives. When you browse a PC's files remotely, you can download copies of them to work on. You can also stream video and view photos in a slide show.

For some reason, the Fetch files feature was never available on Windows 8.1, despite being available on Windows 7 and Windows 10.

If you use the Fetch feature to access some files remotely, it’s better to download the locally, or upload them to OneDrive to ensure that they will remain available.

Do you use OneDrive's Fetch Files feature? Will you miss it? Tell us in the comments.