SharePoint vs OneDrive: where your organisation's files should live
SharePoint vs OneDrive is a question of ownership, not storage. In Microsoft 365, OneDrive holds one person's working files, SharePoint holds the files a team manages together, and Microsoft Teams saves into both. Arke Technologies plans, migrates and manages all three for organisations across South Africa.
SharePoint vs OneDrive: where your organisation's files should live
Last reviewed: October 2026, 18 min read
SharePoint vs OneDrive is a question of ownership, not storage. In Microsoft 365, OneDrive holds one person's working files, SharePoint holds the files a team manages together, and Microsoft Teams saves into both. Arke Technologies plans, migrates and manages all three for organisations across South Africa.
Last reviewed: October 2026, 18 min read
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The short answer
- OneDrive is for one person's working files. Drafts, notes and work in progress that belong to an individual, shared with others when needed.
- SharePoint is for files a team owns. Anything a department, a project or the whole organisation depends on, with owners, permissions and retention that outlast any one person.
- Microsoft Teams stores files in both. A file uploaded to a channel is saved in the team's SharePoint site; a file shared in a chat is saved in the sender's OneDrive (Microsoft, October 2026).
- Decide the owner before you move anything. For each collection of files, record who maintains it, who needs access and who stays responsible when roles change. A familiar folder name does not answer those questions.
What OneDrive is, and what it is for
What is OneDrive? In a work or school account, OneDrive is the storage space Microsoft 365 gives each licensed person for their own work files. You will still see the older name, OneDrive for Business; it is the same service, and it is separate from the personal OneDrive that comes with a private Microsoft account.
Microsoft describes it as storage for an individual's files, and that is the right way to use it: drafts, notes, a spreadsheet you are still shaping, a document you will send to two colleagues for comment. Files in OneDrive are private until their owner shares them, and people can then edit a shared file together, so OneDrive supports collaboration as well as solo work.
What OneDrive is not built for is a department's records. Microsoft's service description says that storing departmental and organisation-wide data in OneDrive is not a supported use, and names SharePoint as the place for it (Microsoft, October 2026). The reason is ownership: everything in a OneDrive depends on one person's account.
When people leave or change roles
This is where the SharePoint vs OneDrive decision pays for itself.
A leaver's OneDrive is on a clock. When an account is deleted, Microsoft 365 keeps that person's OneDrive for 30 days by default, then holds it in a recycle bin for 93 days before it is gone (Microsoft, October 2026). An administrator can lengthen the retention period.- The manager is given access, if a manager is recorded. By default the leaver's manager receives access and an email warning. With no manager or secondary owner set, nobody is told (Microsoft, October 2026).
- Blocking sign-in does not start that clock; deleting the account does. Removing the licence starts a different one: an unlicensed OneDrive is archived on its 93rd day (Microsoft, October 2026). Plan offboarding so that someone reviews the OneDrive and moves what the team needs into SharePoint before the account goes.
- A SharePoint site does not notice. Membership changes; the files, their history and their permissions stay where they are.
- A change of role is quieter and just as risky. When someone moves departments, their OneDrive goes with them, and so does everything the old team kept in it.
Sharing, permissions and Copilot
Which is more secure, SharePoint or OneDrive? Neither. They are parts of the same Microsoft 365 service, reached with the same work account and governed by the same sharing, retention and sensitivity-label controls. What differs is who decides who gets in.
- In OneDrive, the owner decides, file by file. That suits working files, and becomes hard to audit at scale.
- In SharePoint, the site's owners and your administrators decide, by group. Access can be reviewed in one place and removed in one step.
- Sharing links outlive memory. Years of links that anyone can open leave sensitive files exposed. Set link defaults, expiry dates and guest access site by site.
- Copilot shows what permissions allow. Microsoft 365 Copilot and search surface whatever a person is allowed to open, so oversharing in SharePoint and OneDrive becomes visible as soon as a rollout begins. Clean up permissions and apply sensitivity labels first: see Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness and Microsoft 365 security.
Retention, backup and POPIA
- Retention is a policy, not a backup. Version history, the recycle bin and retention labels protect against everyday mistakes. Recovery after ransomware or a mass deletion needs an independent backup of SharePoint and OneDrive: see backup and disaster recovery.
- POPIA follows the file. Personal information in a OneDrive is still your organisation's responsibility. The Act expects you to keep records no longer than you need them (section 14) and to secure them (section 19), which is far easier in a SharePoint library with retention and access reviews than across hundreds of personal drives. See our POPIA compliance checklist.
- Records need a named owner. Contracts, board papers, HR and finance records belong in libraries with retention rules and an owner by role, so that an auditor can see who could open what, and when.
- Governance needs evidence. Boards and audit committees ask how information is controlled. Site ownership records, access reviews and audit logs are that evidence: see IT governance, risk and compliance.
Six mistakes to avoid
- Copying the old folder tree as it is. You carry over ten years of clutter, broken permissions and paths too long for Microsoft 365.
- Putting team files in one person's OneDrive. It is quicker today, and it fails on the day that person leaves or changes role.
- Building one enormous site for everything. Permissions become impossible to reason about. Give each department, project and records set its own site.
- Breaking permissions folder by folder. Microsoft recommends keeping unique permissions in a library to no more than 5,000 (Microsoft, October 2026). Permission by site and by group instead.
- Sending contracts and decisions in chat. They land in the sender's OneDrive. Share them in a channel, or save them to the library where the record belongs.
- Naming a person, not a role, as owner. The owner leaves, and the site is orphaned. Name a role and a deputy.
How Arke Technologies plans and runs the move
- Licences. We supply Microsoft 365 licences on monthly or annual terms, and match the plan mix to how each group works: see Microsoft 365 licensing, migration and management.
- Ownership check and design. We run the ownership check with each department, and turn the answers into a written design for sites, libraries and permissions that you approve before anything moves.
- Migration. Waves, reconciliation after each one and a rollback plan, with the old source made read-only before it is retired.
- Security and Copilot readiness. Sharing settings, sensitivity labels, data-loss prevention and a permissions clean-up before Copilot is switched on.
- Managed service. Site requests, access reviews, joiners, movers and leavers, and a monthly service review under an SLA, with incidents prioritised from P1 to P4: see managed IT services.
- Procurement and continuity. Level 1 B-BBEE contributor (sworn affidavit available on request). Company documents, our CSD supplier number and SARS tax compliance status are available on request. The tenant, the content and the admin credentials stay yours, and we document the design so that another team could run it.
We do not publish rates. We quote in writing after an assessment, with licences, the project and ongoing support shown as separate lines.