My Top Reasons to Use OneDrive

 

As you might have noticed, I am now in the OneDrive team. Since I’ve been here for a few months, I think I earned the right to start sharing a few blogs about OneDrive. I’ll do that over the next few months, focusing on the user’s view of OneDrive (as opposed to the view we have from the inside).

 

To get things started, this post shares my top reasons to use OneDrive. As you probably already heard, OneDrive is a cloud storage solution by Microsoft. You can upload, download, sync, and share files from your PC, Mac, Phone or Tablet. Here are a few reasons why I like to use OneDrive.

 

1) Your files in the cloud. The most common reason for using OneDrive is to upload or synchronize your local data to the cloud. This will give you one extra copy of your documents, pictures and videos, which you could use if your computer breaks. Remember the 3-2-1 rules: have 3 copies of your important files, 2 in different media, 1 in another site. For instance, you could have one copy of your files on your PC, one copy in an external drive and one copy in OneDrive.

 

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2) View and edit Office documents. OneDrive offers a great web interface that you can access anywhere you have a OneDrive client or using the https://onedrive.comweb site. The site includes viewers for common data types like videos and pictures. For your Office documents, you can use the great new Office apps for Windows, Mac OSX, Windows Phone, iOS and Android. You can also use the web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote right from the OneDrive.com web site to create, view and edit your documents (even if Office is not installed on the machine).

 

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3) Share files with others. Once your data is in the cloud, you have the option to share a file or an entire folder with others. You can use this to share pictures with your family or to share a document with a colleague. It’s simple to share, simple to access and you can stop sharing at any time.  OneDrive has a handy feature to show files shared with you as part of your drive and it’s quite useful.

 

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4) Upload your photos automatically. If you use a phone or tablet to take pictures and video, you can configure it to automatically upload them to OneDrive. This way your cherished memories will be preserved in the cloud. If you’re on vacation and you phone is lost or stolen, you can replace the phone, knowing that your files were already preserved. We have OneDrive clients for Windows Phone, iOS and Android.

 

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5) Keep in sync across devices. If you have multiple computers, you know how hard it is to keep data in sync. With OneDrive, you can keep your desktop, you laptop and your tablet in sync, automatically. We have OneDrive sync clients for Windows and Mac OSX. You also have an option to sync only a subset of your folders. This will help you have all files on a computer with a large drive, but only a few folders on another computer with limited storage.

 

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6) Search. OneDrive offers a handy search feature that can help you find any of your files. Beyond simply searching for document names or text inside your documents, OneDrive will index the text inside your pictures, the types of picture (using tags like #mountain, #people, #car or #building) or the place where a picture was taken.

 

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Did I forget something important? Use the comments to share other reasons why you like to use OneDrive…