Move to and Copy to unavailable from unmanaged device

Question

Business using intune managed Windows 10/11 devices are working perfectly. However, when connecting from a home PC, users dont have the options Move to or Copy to in Sharepoint Online**.**

Sharepoint Policy is showing: Allow, limited Web only Access.

From the Microsoft documentation it says : Users on unmanaged devices will have browser-only access with no ability to download, print, or sync files.

These are the limitations defined by Microsoft and Move to and Copy to aren't in there. So it should work. Other Microsoft documentation says that these commands do not copy any data locally, so its not a download either.
The general fob off that I see to these questions is "check your permissions". So please let me know which specific permissions relate to this? As the only difference as to it working, is whether it is managed or not and the Conditional Access Policy doesn't appear to have further variables to limit it in this way.

Answer 1

Hi @David Cook - Adaptable IT ,

Welcome to Q&A forum!

The "Move to" and "Copy to" options in SharePoint Online are indeed not related to downloading files locally, so they should theoretically be available even with limited web-only access.

Based on your description, this should not be caused by insufficient permissions. Therefore, it is worth double-checking whether there are any specific settings in Conditional Access Policies that may have different effects on unmanaged devices. If you are not sure, you can share it here and we can discuss it together.

Alternatively, you can use Power Automate or PowerShell as a workaround to copy and move first.

https://blogs.iuvotech.com/how-to-move-files-in-microsoft-sharepoint-using-power-automate

https://www.sharepointdiary.com/2018/03/sharepoint-online-move-files-using-powershell.html

Non-official, just for reference.

Good day!

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Answer 2

Heard back from Microsoft support and this is By Design.

Due to the functions within the browser (or lack thereof), this is to prevent users copying data from a high security location to a low security location.

While the simple buttons in Sharepoint Admin create Conditional Access Policies (CAP) globally, these functions can be turned on and off with individual CAPs, set to specific sites.

The browser functions are not capable of determining this and so it's part of the "Limited" functionality and not specifically mentioned.

Answer 3

Hi @David Cook - Adaptable IT ,

Great to know that and thanks for sharing the update here.

By the way, since the Microsoft Q&A community has a policy that "The question author cannot accept their own answer. They can only accept answers by others.". and according to the scenario introduced here: Answering your own questions on Microsoft Q&A, I would make a brief summary of this thread:

[Move to and Copy to unavailable from unmanaged device]

Issue Symptom:

Business using intune managed Windows 10/11 devices are working perfectly. However, when connecting from a home PC, users dont have the options Move to or Copy to in Sharepoint Online**.**

Sharepoint Policy is showing: Allow, limited Web only Access.

From the Microsoft documentation it says : Users on unmanaged devices will have browser-only access with no ability to download, print, or sync files.

These are the limitations defined by Microsoft and Move to and Copy to aren't in there. So it should work. Other Microsoft documentation says that these commands do not copy any data locally, so its not a download either. The general fob off that I see to these questions is "check your permissions". So please let me know which specific permissions relate to this? As the only difference as to it working, is whether it is managed or not and the Conditional Access Policy doesn't appear to have further variables to limit it in this way.

Current status:

Heard back from Microsoft support and this is By Design.

Due to the functions within the browser (or lack thereof), this is to prevent users copying data from a high security location to a low security location.

While the simple buttons in Sharepoint Admin create Conditional Access Policies (CAP) globally, these functions can be turned on and off with individual CAPs, set to specific sites.

The browser functions are not capable of determining this and so it's part of the "Limited" functionality and not specifically mentioned.

You could click the "Accept Answer" button for this summary to close this thread, and this can make it easier for other community members to see the useful information when reading this thread. Thanks for your understanding!