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Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a
file hosting service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...
operated by
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web version of Microsoft Office. OneDrive offers 5  GB of storage space free of charge, with 100 GB, 1  TB, and 6 TB storage options available either separately or with
Office 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
subscriptions. The OneDrive client app adds
file synchronization File synchronization (or syncing) in computing is the process of ensuring that computer files in two or more locations are updated via certain rules. In ''one-way file synchronization'', also called mirroring, updated files are copied from a sour ...
and cloud backup features to its device. The app comes bundled with
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and is available for
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
,
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
,
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...
,
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
,
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
, and
Xbox Series X and S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, t ...
. In addition,
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
apps directly integrate with OneDrive.


History

At its launch the service, known as ''Windows Live Folders'' at the time (with a codename of ''SkyDrive''), was provided as a limited beta available to a few testers in the United States. On August 1, 2007, the service was expanded to a wider audience. Shortly thereafter, on August 9, 2007, the service was renamed Windows Live SkyDrive and made available to testers in the United Kingdom and India. SkyDrive was initially available in 38 countries and regions, later expanded to 62. On December 2, 2008, the capacity of an individual SkyDrive account was upgraded from 5 GB to 25 GB, and Microsoft added a separate entry point called ''Windows Live Photos'' which allowed users to access their photos and videos stored on SkyDrive. This entry point allowed users to add "People tags" to their photos, download photos into
Windows Photo Gallery Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, raster graphics editor, photo editor and photo sharing, photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite ...
or as a
ZIP Zip, Zips or ZIP may refer to: Common uses * ZIP Code, USPS postal code * Zipper or zip, clothing fastener Science and technology Computing * ZIP (file format), a compressed archive file format ** zip, a command-line program from Info-ZIP * Zi ...
file, as well as viewing
Exif Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other system ...
metadata such as camera information for the photos uploaded. Microsoft also added the ability to have full-screen slide shows for photos using
Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe Inc., Adobe's Run time environment, runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a v ...
. SkyDrive was updated to "Wave 4" release on June 7, 2010, and added the ability to work with Office Web Apps (now known as
Office Online Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
), with versioning. In this update, due to the discontinuation of
Windows Live Toolbar Windows Live Toolbar was a browser extension toolbar for Internet Explorer. It superseded MSN Search Toolbar. Windows Live Toolbar provided a simple search interface that starts to list results as the user types in a search query, and uses Bing ...
, the ability to synchronise and share bookmarked web links between users via SkyDrive was also discontinued. However, users were still able to use
Windows Live Mesh Windows Live Mesh (formerly known as ''Windows Live FolderShare'', ''Live Mesh'', and ''Windows Live Sync'') is a discontinued free-to-use Internet-based file synchronization application by Microsoft designed to allow files and folders between two ...
, which replaced the previous
Windows Live Favorites Windows Live Favorites (codenamed ''Roaming Favorites'') was a part of Microsoft's Windows Live range of services. It allowed users to access and edit their favorites from any computer. Users could import their bookmarks from Internet Explorer and ...
, to synchronize their favorites between computers until its discontinuation in February 2013. In June 2010, users of
Office Live Workspace Microsoft Office Live is a discontinued web-based service providing document sharing and website creation tools for consumers and small businesses. Its successor was branded Windows Live. Office Live consisted of two services, ''Office Live Worksp ...
, released in October 2007, were migrated to ''Windows Live Office''. The migration included all existing workspaces, documents, and sharing permissions. The merger of the two services was a result of Microsoft's decision to merge its Office Live team into Windows Live in January 2009, as well as several deficiencies with Office Live Workspace, which lacked high-fidelity document viewing and did not allow files to be edited from within the web browser. Office Live Workspace also did not offer offline collaboration and co-authoring functionality – instead documents were "checked out" and "checked in", though the service did integrate with SharedView for real-time screen sharing. On June 20, 2011, Microsoft overhauled the user interface for SkyDrive, built using
HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
technologies. The updated version featured caching, hardware acceleration,
HTML5 video The HTML5 specification introduced the video element for the purpose of playing videos, partially replacing the object element. HTML5 video is intended by its creators to become the new standard way to show video on the web, instead of the previou ...
, quick views, cleaner arrangement of photos and infinite scrolling. Microsoft also doubled the file size limit from 50  MB to 100 MB per file. With this update, Microsoft consolidated the different entry points for SkyDrive, such as ''Windows Live Photos'' and ''Windows Live Office'', into one single interface. Files and folders shared with a user, including those in
Windows Live Groups OneDrive Groups, formerly Windows Live Groups, was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination. Features The service allowed ...
, were also accessible in the new interface. On November 29, 2011, Microsoft updated SkyDrive to make sharing and file management easier, as well as HTML5 and other updates. This update also allowed users to see how much storage they had (and how much they had used), a feature that had been removed in the previous update as part of the redesign. On December 3, 2011, Microsoft released SkyDrive apps for iOS and Windows Phone, which are available in the App Store and Windows Phone Store respectively. On April 22, 2012, Microsoft released a SkyDrive desktop app for
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
, 7 and 8, as well as
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
, allowing users to synchronize files on SkyDrive, much like
Windows Live Mesh Windows Live Mesh (formerly known as ''Windows Live FolderShare'', ''Live Mesh'', and ''Windows Live Sync'') is a discontinued free-to-use Internet-based file synchronization application by Microsoft designed to allow files and folders between two ...
, and to "fetch" files on their computer via the web browser. In addition, SkyDrive also provided additional storage available for purchase and reduced the free storage space for new users to 7  GB (from 25 GB.) Existing users were offered a free upgrade offer to retain their 25 GB of free storage. The updated SkyDrive also allowed files up to 2 GB in size (uploaded via the SkyDrive desktop app). The update also brought additional features such as
Open Document Format The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
(ODF) capability, URL shortening services and direct sharing of files to
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
. On August 14, 2012, Microsoft announced a new update for SkyDrive which brought changes and improvements to SkyDrive.com, SkyDrive for Windows desktop and
OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
, and the SkyDrive API as part of
Live Connect Live Connect (previously ''Messenger Connect'', ''Live Services'' and ''Windows Live Dev'') is a collection of APIs and common controls that allow developers to have a deeper control and offers access to the core Windows Live services and data thr ...
. For SkyDrive.com, the updates brought a new "modern" design for the web service consistent with
Outlook.com Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
, and along with the UI update the service also received improvements such as instant search, contextual toolbar, multi-select in thumbnail view, drag-and-drop files into folders, and sorting improvements. For the SkyDrive for Windows desktop and
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
applications, the update brought new performance improvements to photo uploads and the sync experience. The update also improved the SkyDrive API with the removal of file type restrictions, ability to upload images in their full resolution, as well as a new SkyDrive file picker for opening and saving files. On August 28, 2012, Microsoft released a SkyDrive app for
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
on
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...
store. On September 18, 2012, Microsoft also introduced a
recycle bin A recycling bin (or recycle bin) is a container used to hold recyclables before they are taken to recycling centers. Recycling bins exist in various sizes for use inside and outside homes, offices, and large public facilities. Separate cont ...
feature on SkyDrive and announced that SkyDrive will allow users to create online surveys via Excel Web App.


Sky lawsuit and OneDrive renaming

Microsoft became involved in a lawsuit with British television broadcaster
Sky UK Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...
for using the word "Sky", resulting in a High Court ruling in June 2013 that the service's brand breached Sky's trademark. On July 31, 2013, in a joint press release between Sky and Microsoft, it was announced that a settlement had been reached and as a result the 'SkyDrive' name would be changed to 'OneDrive'. Sky allowed Microsoft to continue using the brand "for a reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to a new brand". The change was made on most platforms on February 19, 2014, following an announcement on January 27. On June 18, 2015, Microsoft launched an improved design of OneDrive for the web. In 2015 Microsoft removed the unlimited storage plan for Office 365 Home, Personal and University packages, reduced the free OneDrive storage from 15 GB to 5 GB, and replaced paid subscriptions to 100 GB and 200 GB plans to a $1.99 per month 50 GB plan. These changes caused major controversy with users, some of whom petitioned Microsoft to reverse the plans. By November 21, 2015, in response to Microsoft's November 2 announcement, over 70,000 people had taken to the official OneDrive uservoice to voice their concerns. According to Microsoft these changes were a response to people abusing the service by using OneDrive to store PC backups, movie collections, and DVR recordings.


Storage


Quota

the service offers 5  GB of free storage for new users. Additional storage is available for purchase. The amount of storage available has changed several times. Initially, the service provided 7 GB of storage and, for one year, an additional 3 GB of free storage to students. Users who signed up to OneDrive prior to April 22, 2012 were able to opt-in for a limited time offer of 25 GB of free storage upgrade. The service is built using
HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
technologies, and files up to 300 MB can be uploaded via drag and drop into the web browser, or up to 10 GB via the OneDrive desktop application for
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
. From September 23, 2013 onwards, in addition to 7 GB of free storage (or 25 GB for users eligible for the free upgrade), power users who required more storage could choose from one of four paid storage plans. Users in some regions may need to have a certain payment card or
PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
account to pay. The paid storage plan is renewed automatically each year unless Microsoft or the user cancels the service. Upon the re-launch as OneDrive, monthly payment plans were introduced, along with the ability to earn up to 5 GB of free storage for referring new users to OneDrive (500 MB each), and 3 GB if users enable automatic uploads of photos using the OneDrive mobile apps on smartphones. Subscribers to
Office 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
's home-oriented plans also receive additional storage for use with the service, with 20 GB per user. In June 2014 it was announced that OneDrive's default storage would increase to 15 GB, putting it in line with its competitor
Google Drive Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addi ...
. An additional 15 GB were offered for activating camera roll backup on a mobile device, putting it ahead of Google Drive until November 2015, when this bonus was cancelled. The amount of additional storage for Office 365 subscribers also increased to 1 TB. Microsoft reduced the price of OneDrive storage subscriptions at that time. In October 2014 Microsoft announced that it would offer unlimited OneDrive storage to all Office 365 subscribers. However, on November 3, 2015, the 1 TB cap was reinstated. Microsoft additionally announced the planned replacement of its 100 GB and 200 GB plans with a new 50 GB plan in early 2016, and the reduction of free storage from 15 GB to 5 GB. Any current accounts over this limit could keep the increased storage for at least 12 months. Following calls for Microsoft to reverse the reduction decision, Microsoft announced on December 11 of the same year that it would allow existing users to request to have up to 30 GB of free storage unaffected by the reduction, and said it would fully refund customers of Office 365 not satisfied with the 1 TB cap, among other redress. In June 2019, alongside the announcement for the Personal Vault, Microsoft announced that it would increase the OneDrive standalone storage plan from 50 GB to 100 GB at no additional charge, and that it would be giving Office 365 subscribers a new option to add more storage as they need it.


Versioning

OneDrive initially did not store previous versions of files, except for Microsoft Office formats. In July 2017, however, Microsoft OneDrive team announced that version history support for all file types was the top requested feature; as such, OneDrive would keep older versions of all files for up to 30 days.


Recycle bin

OneDrive implements a "recycle bin"; files the user chooses to delete are stored there for a time, without counting as part of the user's allocation, and can be reinstated until they are ultimately purged from OneDrive.


Download as ZIP files

Entire folders can be downloaded as a single ZIP file with OneDrive. For a single download, there is a limit of 15 GB; the total ZIP file size limit is 20 GB; and up to 10,000 files can be included in a ZIP file.


Files On-Demand

On Windows 10, OneDrive can utilize Files On-Demand, where files synchronized with OneDrive show up in file listings, but do not require any disk space. As soon as the content of the file is required, the file is downloaded in the background.


Editing


Office for the web

Microsoft added Office for the web (known at the time as Office Web Apps, later renamed to Office Online and again to just Office) capability to OneDrive in its "Wave 4" update, allowing users to upload, create, edit and share
Word A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
,
Excel ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...
,
PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoi ...
and OneNote documents directly within a web browser. In addition, Office for the web allows multiple users to simultaneously co-author Excel documents in a web browser, and co-author OneNote documents with another web user or the desktop application. Users can also view the version history of Office documents stored on OneDrive.


Formats

OneDrive allows the viewing of documents in
Portable Document Format Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
(PDF), and in the
Open Document Format The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
(ODF), an
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based file format supported by a number of word processing applications, including Microsoft Office,
LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source productivity software, office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was fork (software development), forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of t ...
,
Apache OpenOffice Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of OpenOffice.org and the designated successor of IBM Lotus Symphony. It is a close cousin of LibreOffice, Collabora Online and N ...
and Corel's WordPerfect. OneDrive's search function supports search within PDF documents. OneDrive includes an online text editor that allows users to view and edit files in
plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...
format, such as
text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operating ...
s and
batch file Batch may refer to: Food and drink * Batch (alcohol), an alcoholic fruit beverage * Batch loaf, a type of bread popular in Ireland * A dialect term for a bread roll used in North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Coventry, as well as on the Wirral ...
s.
Syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...
and
code completion Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...
is available for a number of programming and markup languages, including C#,
Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic (cl ...
,
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
,
Windows PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-sourc ...
,
CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
,
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
,
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
,
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
and
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
. This online editor includes a find-and-replace feature and a way to manage file merging conflicts.


Photos and videos

OneDrive can use geo-location data for photos uploaded to the service, and will automatically display a map of the tagged location. OneDrive also allows users to tag people in photos uploaded via the web interface or via
Windows Photo Gallery Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, raster graphics editor, photo editor and photo sharing, photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite ...
. OneDrive also has support for the UWP app,
Microsoft Photos Microsoft Photos is an image viewer, image organizer, raster graphics editor, photo sharing app, and video clip editor developed by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows 8 as a functional replacement for Windows Photo Viewer. Photos ha ...
. Photos uploaded to OneDrive can be played as an automatic slideshow. Images uploaded to OneDrive will be recognized as 360° images if they are clicked with popular models of 360° cameras in a panoramic mode, right from within the OneDrive.


Client apps

Microsoft has released OneDrive client applications for
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
,
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
,
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
,
Windows 10 Mobile Windows 10 Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. First released in 2015, it is a successor to Windows Phone 8.1, but was marketed by Microsoft as being an edition of its PC operating system Windows 10. Wind ...
,
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
, and
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
that allow users to browse, view and organize files stored on their OneDrive cloud storage. In addition, Microsoft also released desktop applications for
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
(
Vista Vista usually refers to a distant view. Vista may also refer to: Software *Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007 *VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) ...
and later) and
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
(10.7
Lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...
and later) that allow users to synchronize their entire OneDrive storage with their computers for offline access, as well as between multiple computers. The OneDrive client for Windows allows users to "fetch" the contents of their PCs via the web browser, provided the user enabled this option; macOS users can fetch from a PC, but not vice versa. The Android, iOS and
Windows Phone 8 Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft. It was released on October 29, 2012, and, like its predecessor, it features a flat user interface based on the Metro design language. It was su ...
versions also allow camera photos to automatically be uploaded to OneDrive. Upon the re-branding as OneDrive, the Xbox One app also added
achievements Achievement may refer to: *Achievement (heraldry) *Achievement (horse), a racehorse *Achievement (video gaming), a meta-goal defined outside of a game's parameters See also * Achievement test for student assessment * Achiever, a personality typ ...
. In addition to the client apps, OneDrive is integrated into
Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...
and later,
Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010, as the succes ...
and later, as well as the Office and Photos hub in
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...
, enabling users to access documents, photos and videos stored on their OneDrive account. OneDrive in Windows 8.1 can sync user settings and files, through either the included OneDrive app (originally called SkyDrive, until the name was changed with a Windows update) or
File Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...
, deprecating the previous Windows client. Along with the use of reparse points, these changes allow files to be accessed directly from OneDrive as if they are stored locally. The OneDrive app was also updated to include a local
file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening (e.g. viewing, playing, editing or pr ...
. Unlike on Windows 8, use of OneDrive on Windows 8.1 requires the user's Windows account be linked to a
Microsoft account A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on on ...
; the previous OneDrive desktop client (which did not have this requirement) no longer works on Windows 8.1. Additionally, the Fetch feature does not work on Windows 8.1. In an update on July 4, 2017, OneDrive desktop client started showing an error message to the effect that the local OneDrive folder must be located on an
NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...
volume only. Other file systems, including the older
FAT32 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by c ...
and
exFAT exFAT (Extensible File Allocation Table) is a file system introduced by Microsoft in 2006 and optimized for flash memory such as USB flash drives and SD cards. exFAT was proprietary until 28 August 2019, when Microsoft published its specificati ...
, as well as the newer
ReFS Resilient File System (ReFS), codenamed "Protogon", is a Microsoft proprietary file system introduced with Windows Server 2012 with the intent of becoming the "next generation" file system after NTFS. ReFS was designed to overcome problems tha ...
were not supported. Microsoft further commented that this was always the requirement; it had merely fixed a bug in which the warning was not displayed. Microsoft also denied this feature having anything to do with the forthcoming OneDrive Files On-Demand.


Integration with Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
, starting with
Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010, as the succes ...
and
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is a version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for macOS. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and is comparable to Office 2010 for Windows. Office 2011 was followed by Microsoft Office 2016 ...
, allows users to directly open or save documents to OneDrive, or simultaneously edit shared documents with other users. Changes are synchronized when a document is saved and, where conflicts occur, the saving user can choose which version to keep; users can also use several different desktop and web programs to edit the same shared document.
Microsoft OneNote Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking software developed by Microsoft. It is available as part of the Microsoft Office suite and since 2014 has been free on all platforms outside the suite. OneNote is designed for free-form information gathering ...
users can sync one or more of their notebooks using OneDrive. Once a notebook is selected for sharing, OneDrive copies the notebook from the user's computer to OneDrive, and that online copy then becomes the original for all future changes. The originating copy remains on the user's hard drive but is no longer updated by OneNote. Users can switch back to an offline-only version of the notebook by manually changing its location in OneNote, but unpredictable results may occur, including the OneNote application crashing and loss of notebook data under certain conditions. Under such circumstances, re-sharing the Notebook to OneDrive may result in recovery of the lost data.


Personal Vault

In September 2019 Microsoft announced Personal Vault. It is a protected area in OneDrive where users can store their most important or sensitive files and photos without sacrificing the convenience of anywhere access. Personal Vault has a strong authentication method or a second step of identity verification, such as fingerprint, face, PIN, or a code sent via email or SMS. Personal Vault is not available in macOS app.


Interoperability

OneDrive allows users to embed their Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents into other web pages. These embedded documents allow anyone who visits these web pages to interact with them, such as browsing an embedded PowerPoint slideshow or perform calculations within an embedded Excel spreadsheet. In addition, Microsoft has released a set of APIs for OneDrive via
Live Connect Live Connect (previously ''Messenger Connect'', ''Live Services'' and ''Windows Live Dev'') is a collection of APIs and common controls that allow developers to have a deeper control and offers access to the core Windows Live services and data thr ...
to enable developers to develop web services and client apps utilizing OneDrive's cloud storage. This allows users of these web services and client apps to browse, view, upload or edit files stored on OneDrive. A
software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...
(SDK) is available for
.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...
,
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
and
Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...
with a limited set of API for
web app A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
s and Windows. OneDrive is already interoperable with a host of web services, including: *
Outlook.com Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
: Allows users to: ** Directly upload Office documents and photos within Outlook.com, store them on OneDrive and share them with other users. ** Directly save Office documents within Outlook.com to OneDrive, and view or edit these documents directly within the web browser. ** Edit Office documents within the web browser using
Office Online Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
and reply directly back to the sender with the edits made. *
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
,
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
and
LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
: Enables users to quickly share their files with their contacts on these
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
s. OneDrive maintains an access control list of all users with permissions to view or edit the files, including those users on social networks. *
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a variety ...
: ''Save & Share'' feature allows users to save search histories into a OneDrive folder. *
Windows Live Groups OneDrive Groups, formerly Windows Live Groups, was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination. Features The service allowed ...
: Before being discontinued, Windows Live Groups provided each group with 1 GB of storage space on OneDrive to be shared between the group members. Group members were allowed to access, create, modify and delete files within the group's OneDrive folders, along with the other functionality that OneDrive provides. However, these features eventually became native to OneDrive. *
Samsung Gallery The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
: Users can sync their photos and videos from the gallery of Samsung Devices to OneDrive through the partnership of Microsoft and Samsung.


Privacy concerns, complete loss of access to data and applications

Data stored on OneDrive is subject to monitoring through technologies like
PhotoDNA PhotoDNA is a proprietary image-identification and content filtering technology widely used by online service providers. History PhotoDNA was developed by Microsoft Research and Hany Farid, professor at Dartmouth College, beginning in 2009. ...
. Any content that is in violation of Microsoft's Code of Conduct is subject to removal, and may lead to temporary or permanent shutdown of the associated Microsoft account. Closing an account without pre-notice is in most cases illegal in many jurisdictions, like in Germany. This has led to privacy concerns in relation to data stored on OneDrive. Microsoft has responded by indicating that "strict internal policies rein place to limit access to a user’s data", and that advanced mechanisms, such as Microsoft's automated
PhotoDNA PhotoDNA is a proprietary image-identification and content filtering technology widely used by online service providers. History PhotoDNA was developed by Microsoft Research and Hany Farid, professor at Dartmouth College, beginning in 2009. ...
scanning tool, are utilized to ensure users abide with the Code of Conduct and that their account does not contain files in contravention thereof, such as partial human nudity (including art or drawings), or any online surveys. Microsoft provides user data to local law enforcement on request, or when they suspect content that violates law is being stored in a OneDrive account. Microsoft accounts associated with flagged OneDrive content can be suspended without notice. Consequently, the account holder will lose access to the data data stored in their Microsoft account, such as OneDrive files and
Outlook Outlook or The Outlook may refer to: Computing * Microsoft Outlook, an e-mail and personal information management software product from Microsoft * Outlook.com, a web mail service from Microsoft * Outlook on the web, a suite of web applications ...
emails, contacts, and calendar. There have also been concerns about people who have been automatically flagged losing all their Microsoft account data even after being cleared by local law enforcement. In some cases people have been locked out of their online accounts that were using Microsoft’s
two-factor authentication Multi-factor authentication (MFA; encompassing two-factor authentication, or 2FA, along with similar terms) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or application only after successfully presenting ...
app, losing their
Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
games library, and being unable to use their
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
365 licence. Some people using the
BitLocker BitLocker is a full volume encryption feature included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with Windows Vista. It is designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes. By default, it uses the AES encryption algorithm in ...
drive encryption software also risk losing their local disk data if the recovery key for their data was stored in OneDrive as per Microsoft’s recommendations. It is reported that at least 100 users in Germany have been affected by this up to 2022.


OneDrive for Business

Microsoft has a similarly named but unrelated software plus service offering called OneDrive for Business (previously SkyDrive Pro). While OneDrive is a personal storage service on the web, OneDrive for Business is a managed cloud storage for business users that replaces SharePoint Workspace. The physical medium on which the information is stored can be either hosted on-premises or purchased as service subscription from Microsoft.


See also

*
Comparison of file hosting services This is a comparison of file hosting services which are currently active. File hosting services are a particular kind of online file storage; however, various products that are designed for online file storage may not have features or characteri ...
*
Comparison of online backup services This is a comparison of online backup services. Online backup is a special kind of online storage service; however, various products that are designed for file storage may not have features or characteristics that others designed for backup have ...


References


External links

* {{File hosting service Windows Live Cloud storage Data synchronization Email attachment replacements File hosting File sharing services Online backup services Web applications Proprietary cross-platform software Android (operating system) software Internet properties established in 2007 IOS software Windows Phone software File hosting for macOS File hosting for Windows
OneDrive Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web ver ...
Windows components Microsoft websites Universal Windows Platform apps Companies' terms of service