What

OneDrive and node don't like each other very much. a node install for a modest project will create well over a couple of 20k files in the nodes_modules folder. Not really an issue for a basic laptop or pc.

But add OneDrive into mix and you might see where I'm coming from. Asking OneDrive to sync 20k files is a bit of a burden to put it mildy.

So what

Now why would someone put a node project in a folder that is under the control of OneDrive? That doesn't make sense!
But here is the catch. Github Desktop will out of the box clone in the users Documents folder and with OneDrive setup to backup and sync Documents it becomes part of OneDrive. It is not the size of the files that matter but the sheer number of files.

Sure this can be circumvented by either moving Github Desktop clones outside the Documents folder and nothing stops the user of doing so. But a novice user and I'm teaching novice users as they are students and mostly had no contact to git, node or programming in general is probably unaware of this backfiring. Sure I can tell them to not clone in Documents but anyone who teaches know that about 20-30% will actually do so. And I'm being optimistic there. The rest of the course the students (and I) are struggling with a OneDrive sync that is slow or has errors. Let allone removing the projects after course end will take un insurmountable amounf of work, cleaning out all the different recycle bins that OneDrives stores.

Now what

Wouldn't it be an idea to not clone in a folder und OneDrive? Idea no. 2: Wouldn't it be great if OneDrive would stop syncing specific named folders? As far as I know currently OneDrive does not do that. Not could one create a special .onedrive_please_ignore_this folder that tells OneDrive not to sync it's contents.

What are your thoughts?