Turn off "Add shortcut to OneDrive" in SharePoint Online service

The 'Add shortcut to OneDrive' option in SharePoint allows a user to link a location as a sub-folder within their OneDrive for Business personal account.

This can cause issues when a user is using OneDrive to sync content to their computer, and then tries to sync a SharePoint location that is already linked.

If you would like an environment where users can only sync - but not link - to content, you can remove the 'Add shortcut to OneDrive' option in your Microsoft 365 SharePoint service.

This requires SharePoint Online Management Shell and a Global Administrator account to complete.

1. In an elevated PowerShell, if not already, install SharePoint Online Management Shell.

Install-Module -Name Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell

2. Connect to your SharePoint admin instance. Use a Global Administrator account when prompted.

Connect-SPOService -Url https://<MSOLdomain>-admin.sharepoint.com

Where <MSOLdomain> is your tenancy instance of SharePoint.

3. To disable 'Add shortcut to OneDrive' option, enter:

Set-SPOTenant -DisableAddShortcutsToOneDrive $true

4. To confirm if the setting has changed, enter:

Get-SPOTenant | Format-List DisableAddShortcutsToOneDrive

When disabled, the result should display True.

The change may take a few hours to apply.

This will only stop the ability for users to create new links to SharePoint content in their OneDrive - and does not remove any shortcuts that users may have already have.

To remove existing links, the end user should unlink content from within OneDrive. If SharePoint linked content is synced to computers via the OneDrive app, it may take some time for changes to apply. Afterwards, users can sync instead of link to SharePoint content.