Microsoft's cloud storage and Google Drive rival, OneDrive, is in line to receive a number of new features, the company has revealed. Personal and business customers are due to gain access to features that will make life easier, including a new Add to OneDrive option for easy file and folder sharing.
Add to OneDrive is a business-centric feature that will be a big help for collaborative work, but home users have a lot to look forward to as well. Key new features include the ability upload files of up to 100 GB in size, and the arrival of a dark mode option for the web-based version of OneDrive, bringing it in line with the mobile apps.
For anyone working from home, either on a permanent basis or as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, tighter integration with Teams will allow for much simpler, unified file sharing. Microsoft says that in the coming weeks, file metadata will be synchronized along with the files themselves, a move that will prove useful for home and business users alike.
Microsoft explains another new feature coming later this year:
Your files should move as your workflow does. As a document moves through its lifecycle -- from creation to review to final -- it needs to relocate to shared cloud libraries that reach a broader group of collaborators. But it needs to do so without affecting the original group's access. Later this summer, business users can do exactly that in OneDrive by choosing to keep sharing with collaborators when they move their files. This means all business users who had original access to a file will be re-added to it if that file changes shared library locations. Those users will now receive a new link maintaining the same permissions they had before and receive a notification about the move.
In addition to the increased 100 Gb file size limit, Microsoft is also introducing the option to disable distracting comment notifications. For friends, families and groups, there is a new sharing function on the way which will make it easy to quickly share new files with the same people time and time again.
Other things to watch out for include OneDrive's file detail pane and activity feed let you see your file activity and comments in single view, the ability to synchronize admin reports, and the option for administrators to put in place multi-factor authentication policies and implement automatic expiration of external access.
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