Microsoft is finally making one of Windows 10’s most unloved features actually useful

One of Windows 10’s most unloved features – OneDrive – could finally become useful thanks to new tweaks by Microsoft.

Microsoft has been trying to strongarm Windows 10 users into using its OneDrive cloud storage service for years now, with the service now tightly integrated into the operating system, yet its limitations meant that most people either ignored it, or stuck with its competitors like Google Drive or DropBox.

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However, in a new blog post, the company explains some of the much-needed changes it’s bringing to OneDrive, focusing on four areas of improvement, making it more connected, more flexible, more control, and more personal.

More connected

When it comes to making OneDrive more connected, Microsoft is adding Teams integration. Now, this won’t be the most exciting addition, but it means business users who use Microsoft’s Teams app can easily create and share links to files and folders in OneDrive.

This won’t be of much interest to non-business users, but thankfully, Microsoft has made some changes that will appeal to everyone.

More flexible

Perhaps the best change to OneDrive is that Microsoft is upping the maximum upload file size limit from 15GB to 100GB.

This is great news for people who want to keep large files, such as videos, on OneDrive. The service will also use 'differential sync' so that when changes are made to the large files, only those changes are uploaded, not only the entire large file again.

Microsoft is also changing how you’re notified about comments on files (again, mainly used by business users), and you can share files via the URL in your web browser with other internal colleagues.

More control

Microsoft also talked about how users will get more control over their OneDrive files. This is again aimed primarily at business users, and admins will be able to sync reports later this year. They can also set automatic expiration dates and times for external access to shared files, grant one-time passcodes and easily migrate data into OneDrive.

More personal

For home users, Microsoft is working on making it easier to share files, photos and videos with friends and family. You will be able to create various groups and decide what files each group has access to. You can select files or folders, click the ‘Share’ button, then select the group you’d like to have access to the files.

OneDrive is also getting a Dark Mode for all users who access it via the web. 

As we mentioned, despite being integrated in Windows 10, OneDrive has struggled to convince people to use it. For many people, it’s simply yet another pre-installed Windows 10 app that occasionally bugs you to use it.

Will these new features win over naysayers? Time will tell, but the changes are certainly welcome.

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Via Neowin