Back around early December of 2025, hundreds of users online started reporting an issue on their OneDrive accounts wherein they were being spammed by stranger accounts, potentially bots. These spams had been coming in as shared folders, and the worst thing is that they couldn"t be dealt with in any way. Coincidentally perhaps, this was right around the time when Microsoft was working on a new OneDrive design, an effort that is now extending to the entire Windows 11 user experience too.
Users found that these spammy unsolicited shared folders could not be stopped, as there is no way for senders to block these as OneDrive does not allow disabling file and folder sharing from unknown users. Not only that, but users also noticed that they couldn"t report these junk as spam, which further added to their inconvenience and annoyance.
The issue first came to notice when an affected user aptly named "Phillip Confused" raised the bug on the Microsoft Learn forum. Over 50 people upvoted this query which indicates it was quite a widespread bug.
They wrote: "Recently strangers (AI driven bots) have started sending me emails sharing links to their Microsoft Onedrives! .. How do I stop this from happening? .. Are there any security concerns (Viruses/Malware)? .. Am I liable if they attempt to share any illegal content? .. I receive the Email into my junk folder which I can"t stop and then I get a Onedrive notification of the file/folder share."
Over on Reddit too, many people complained about the problem. A user sdegonge wrote the following: "I received 3 emails today that said someone wanted to share a document on OneDrive. I did not open the email but preview still showed it. I deleted the email but these files still appeared in my OneDrive live shared items. .. These are named "GET_BOX???". .. My only options for these are to select the checkbox next to it and select "Hide from Shared". When I do this, I have the option to report it as spam, which I check then click remove. .. If I refresh the screen, they come back!"
Another user ZyreHD shared a slightly more detailed account as they wrote: "Today I received 3 notifications that files where being shared with my OneDrive account. Wondering what it was I logged into my OneDrive account and clicked Shared > Shared with me ... I clicked on one of the file. It will open a white pdf saying Open Site. I didn"t continue. .. I keep getting these unknown shared files. For the past couple of days it"s been increasing in amount."
A month later, Microsoft acknowledged the bug and confirmed that it was happening across Windows, Mac, and Android. In the issue description section, Microsoft wrote: "Some users are unable to hide, remove, or stop sharing files that appear under the OneDrive Shared files tab. Affected users are also unable to report unknown shared files as spam." Microsoft said that it was working on a fix and hoped to resolve the issue by the end of January 2026. However, it"s been close to three months and so far the support article has not been updated, indicating that the issue may still be open.