What does OneDrive do?
OneDrive is Microsoft’s answer to cloud storage services like Apple’s iCloud and Google Drive. OneDrive features an excellent user interface and provides clients for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows systems. It is also fully integrated with Windows and Microsoft 365. The service excels in showcasing and managing photos online, as well as file sharing and collaborative editing.
What’s new in OneDrive this year?
In 2024, OneDrive is expected to receive a new design powered by artificial intelligence, web synchronization in offline mode, more sharing and collaboration options, file preferences, Teams integration, and backup for the desktop and documents folders in macOS. A feature for sharing photo stories privately with followers will also be launched soon. These features are currently available in business and educational accounts, and we have contacted Microsoft representatives to find out when they will be available for consumers, and we will update this review once we receive confirmation.
How much does OneDrive cost?
Anyone with a Microsoft account gets a OneDrive account, including everyone who signed up for a Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com email account. You can also register using any other email provider.
Free users get 5 GB of free storage, and some smartphones and laptops add extra free storage. For comparison, iCloud offers 1 GB for free unless you purchase a device from Apple, which gives you 5 GB. Dropbox gives you 2 GB for free. IDrive offers 10 GB. Google Drive provides 15 GB, although this space is shared with Gmail. Unfortunately, Microsoft recently followed Google’s policy in this regard and now counts email attachments in Outlook.com towards your storage quota. Smaller players like Mega and pCloud offer larger amounts of free storage but with fewer features.
Microsoft 365 users not only get more storage but also more features, including features like expiry links and password protection, along with downloadable Microsoft 365 software. Plans start at $19.99 per year for a Basic plan with 100 GB of storage. Home subscriptions at $9.99 per month include 6 TB (1 TB per user among six users). Another option is to add 200 GB of storage to OneDrive for $1.99 per month, although you will lose the benefits I just mentioned. In comparison, Apple, iCloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive all sell a plan for $9.99 per month with 2 TB of storage.
How does OneDrive synchronization work?
OneDrive synchronization works on Windows 10 and Windows 11, as well as macOS 10.14 or later. Support for earlier versions of Windows has been discontinued. There are ways to use it on Linux, but there is no first-party client application. The OneDrive mobile app works on Android 6.0 or later and iOS 15 or later. It is also available in the Amazon Appstore for Kindle Fire. You can also run it on Xbox One.
The synchronization app is quickly installed on the desktop, with a setup process that allows you to create an account if you don’t already have one. The setup shows how your OneDrive folder will appear in Windows Explorer (or Finder), with a small blue cloud icon instead of the traditional yellow folder icon. The setup also places a cloud icon in your system tray, from where you can open your synced folder or change settings.
When
Adding an image, document, or another element to the created OneDrive folder will automatically upload it to the cloud and then appear in any of your other OneDrive clients on any of your other devices. You can now upload files up to 250 GB in size – larger than what most people need, but not as large as Google Drive’s 5 TB (although the maximum for some file types in Google Drive is much smaller). You can share any files or folders stored in the OneDrive cloud with view or edit permissions. Paid OneDrive users can protect shared files with a password and set expiration times for sharing. Apple’s and Google’s cloud services do not offer these features at any plan level without workarounds or third-party add-ons. Dropbox offers these features, but only with some paid plans.
To conduct a quick cross-platform sync test, I installed OneDrive on both my iMac and my Windows desktop. I then created a new folder in the OneDrive app, which appeared within seconds in the OneDrive folder on my Mac. Integrating OneDrive into Windows Explorer is extremely useful because you can save work from any application directly to your cloud storage without needing to navigate to a website. This includes applications that automatically save files. However, the desktop tools for iCloud and Google Drive can do the same thing.
OneDrive Features
OneDrive has many functionalities and features. Among the most important are device syncing, folder and file syncing, Personal Vault, folder backups, and real-time collaboration with Microsoft 365.
Device Syncing
OneDrive can sync settings and applications across all Windows desktops, laptops, and tablets. It allows smartphone users with iPhones or Androids running the OneDrive app to upload photos and videos taken with their phone camera directly to OneDrive’s camera roll. This feature is also available on iCloud, Dropbox, and other services. With automatic backup of mobile photos, images and videos are quickly available for viewing online in the OneDrive folder on a computer, in the Photos app in Windows, on the web, or in any other OneDrive app you have installed.
Folder and File Syncing
File and folder syncing in OneDrive is similar to what you get from Dropbox and SugarSync. In the past, Microsoft had separate storage and syncing services. The merger of online storage and syncing into a single cloud service is a refreshing simplification of a previous system that was somewhat confusing. Unlike SugarSync, OneDrive keeps all synced files under its own umbrella, just as Dropbox does. This means you can’t sync a specific folder on one computer with a specific folder on another; this approach becomes confusing, and all services except SugarSync have abandoned it.
Personal Vault
The Personal Vault in OneDrive adds an extra layer of security to the files you store there. When you enable your Personal Vault, you must use multi-factor authentication to access it. This can take the form of a security code sent to your email, phone, or authentication app (we recommend the latter for the best security). Files are encrypted locally by BitLocker and are locked after a specified number of minutes of inactivity (which varies by device), and you can’t accidentally share them.
Folder Backup
Unlike true backup services, OneDrive does not allow you to sync any file in any folder on your local drive to the cloud. However, the backup option in settings allows for the most suspicious locations to be protected: Desktop, Documents, and Pictures. These folders do not have to reside inside the OneDrive folder to be synced. This in itself is a huge help if you’re getting a new computer and want important files to automatically appear on it.
Collaboration
Syncing with Microsoft 365
When you create a document in a Microsoft 365 application such as Word or Excel in your OneDrive folder, it can be accessed from any device and the web, and you can also collaborate in real-time editing.
OneDrive in Windows 11
With Windows 11, OneDrive has become more integrated rather than a separate web service. You can see OneDrive in File Explorer, and you can choose which folders to sync to OneDrive or sync everything. Search results on the Windows desktop include OneDrive files, and the media player in Windows 11 can play the music files you have uploaded.
Files On-Demand Feature
One of the best things that has happened to OneDrive is the implementation of the Files On-Demand feature. Assuming it is enabled from the OneDrive settings panel, you no longer have to fill your connected computer’s drive with every file stored in the OneDrive cloud. Instead, as the name suggests, files are only downloaded on-demand when opened. The Files On-Demand feature is also available in the macOS OneDrive client.
You can still set folders and files to be downloaded for offline use, either for all files or on a case-by-case basis. A column in File Explorer called “Status” displays a cloud icon for online files and folders and a circular checkmark for locally stored items. Files waiting to be uploaded show a circular icon with arrows. In my usage, the feature works perfectly. Google added a similar capability to Google Drive, but iCloud Drive still does not have on-demand capability for the Windows client; it operates in on-demand mode by default for Mac and iOS devices.
Mobile OneDrive Clients
I have already mentioned the availability of Android and iOS apps for OneDrive, but mobile OneDrive apps have also extended beyond just smartphones. Apple Watch and Wear OS versions are now available, allowing you to do things like navigate recent photos on your watch face. Tablets running iPadOS, Windows 10, and Android can also benefit from OneDrive apps, and when not available, there is always the excellent web interface.
The mobile apps allow you to not only view anything stored in your OneDrive but also upload files and share anything stored in the cloud with any app on your phone that can accept files. You can even see photos organized by automatic tags like #people, #animal, #building, etc.
I have experimented with accessing OneDrive on both iPhone and Android. The OneDrive apps clearly display your cloud folders or file icons and allow you to view photos and documents, including spreadsheets and PDF files, within the app. They also let you share anything in the folders via an email link (with view only, edit, and expiration options), or you can copy items to the clipboard on your phone. You can also set files for offline viewing and editing.
Happily, Microsoft has added search capabilities to the mobile apps. All mobile apps now also support auto-uploading any photos or videos captured on the device with the auto-upload setting to OneDrive. Other cloud storage services have had similar features for years. You can also watch videos on the phone as well.
Another option for mobile OneDrive users is the suite of Microsoft 365 mobile apps – Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and OneNote. When you open a Office document in the mobile OneDrive app, you can view it, and you can launch the editing app (like Word) from its icon at the top. The web version of OneDrive offers a large dropdown list of tiles for all of these applications online. Documents you create in them sync automatically with all your OneDrive access points.
Support
Media in OneDrive
The Microsoft cloud service hosts and displays all types of common files that you might want to store in the cloud, including documents, music, photos, and videos. Below is an overview of how to handle each type:
Documents
You can download and upload document files, just as you can with the iCloud web interface, and also view and edit them online using OneDrive with Microsoft 365 web applications or installed apps. OneDrive serves as a folder and a main file location for all your online documents created with those apps, just like Google Drive does for Google Docs. Similar to Google Docs, multiple authors can edit documents simultaneously. It displays an icon showing who is typing where, and the document’s content updates in real-time. Microsoft 365 Online also offers better formatting accuracy than Google Docs, and the option to use either the web client or the installed app is an additional advantage. One common drawback of both is that you cannot see text revisions during collaboration.
Music
The media player in Windows 11 and the Groove app in Windows 10 allow you to play songs stored in OneDrive. This is not streaming, as the files must be downloaded to play. Google Play Music does the same for Android users. The web version of OneDrive can stream songs, as can Google Drive, but iCloud cannot play songs stored on iCloud Drive, and Apple Music cannot access songs stored on iCloud Drive.
Photos and Videos
OneDrive offers an impressive display for photos and videos in its web interface. Huh
Source: https://me.pcmag.com/en/file-sync-backup/16821/microsoft-onedrive
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