At the beginning of this year, I started adding data from the offline databases into OneDrive Explorer. This data enhanced other artifacts that were being parsed. One thing that was lacking is a dedicated parser for the offline database (Microsoft.ListSync.db). The latest version of OneDriveExplorer now allows for parsing this data, giving a better representation of OneDrive from an offline perspective.
OneDrive Offline Mode (Project Nucleus)
To get a better understanding of what offline mode is and how it works, lets take a step back to its origins, Project Nucleus.
What is Project Nucleus?
Project Nucleus was announced at Ignite 2020 as part of Microsoft 365 / SharePoint platform enhancements.1 Project Nucleus is aimed at improving performance and usability of Microsoft’s web apps, especially when interacting with large content/data sets and unreliable/slow network connections.
Key features include:
- A local cache on the client device (using a component described sometimes as “Microsoft.SharePoint.exe”) to store data locally and sync with the cloud.
- Support for offline work in web apps (e.g. Microsoft Lists) so users can interact with content even without network connectivity.
- Faster operations like sorting, filtering, grouping in large lists, because many operations can be done against the local cache rather than round-tripping to the server each time.
Nucleus is effectively a foundational engine inside Microsoft 365 web apps, powering offline/resilient experiences like OneDrive Web Offline Mode and faster large-list operations.
OneDrive offline mode
Microsoft announced a new feature coming to OneDrive for Business called Offline Mode in April 2024. The feature allows you to continue to use the web version of OneDrive without an internet connection. It works by downloading your file metadata and running a web server (Microsoft.SharePoint.exe) located in Program Files\Microsoft Onedrive<OneDrive_Version>\.
OneDriveExplorer Microsoft.ListSync.db parsing
By reconstructing the folders in Microsoft.ListSync.db, we can get a better view of what the user has access to when working offline. This data returns slightly different results when compared to what is synced on the endpoint. In this example we can see that SyncEngineDatabase.db (endpoint folders) contains 36458 file(s) - 189 deleted, 1418 folder(s) where as Microsoft.ListSync.db (offline mode) contains 36662 file(s) - 0 deleted, 1452 folder(s). That's an additional 204 files and 34 folders that offline mode gives us.
Another interesting point of data we get with offline mode is that folders contain creation and modify dates. This is not present in the endpoint (SyncEngineDatabase.db) data.
Conclusion
Project Nucleus has come a long way to add offline mode to OneDrive. With the updates to OneDriveExplorer, we now have the ability to parse this artifact on its own instead of just enhancing other artifacts. Try out the new feature and be on the lookout to updates and improvements to offline mode artifacts. The latest version of OneDriveExplorer can be downloaded here.
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https://redmondmag.com/articles/2020/09/23/sharepoint-syntex-project-nucleus.aspx?utm_source=chatgpt.com↩