Top 9 Microsoft OneDrive Tips and Tricks for 2024

Create a 2-way bridge between OneDrive and your local storage

With OneDrive’s Folder Backup feature, you can backup your local computer files to the cloud. This guarantees your data recovery in case of crash or accidental delete.

Similarly, OneDrive’s Sync feature keeps a local copy of your cloud files. It provides you quick access to the files and ensures that they’re always up-to-date.  

These features collectively work as a 2-way bridge between your OneDrive and Personal Computer. You can set them by following these simple steps

1. Click on the white or blue OneDrive icon in the Windows taskbar notification area

   

2. Click on the icon and select ‘Settings’ from the dropdown
3. Then according to your requirement perform the below steps

Get your Email attachments to OneDrive

You can configure OneDrive to automatically save all attachments received in your Microsoft Outlook. This means that you’ll never have to worry about losing an attachment again.

To link your Outlook with the OneDrive app, follow these simple steps in Microsoft Power Automate. 

• Sign up for Power Automate Account
• Click the template, “Save Outlook.com attachments to your OneDrive” as shown below, and follow the prompts.

Real-time Collaboration and Sharing with Link Expiration

When you share a OneDrive file or folder, you can now specify 

• Who can access the link 
• For how long will the link be active 

This is useful if you’re sharing sensitive information and only want the link to be live for a specific period. 

You can edit the access and expiry permissions by going into the “Share Link” settings as shown below. After the link expires, the recipient can no longer access the shared file or folder. 

Recover previous file versions easily

At times you accidentally delete something or make changes that you later regret. To save the day, OneDrive keeps a history of all the changes made to your files. So you can always go back and restore an older version if needed. To retrieve your data, perform these simple steps either on the cloud or on your local storage:

1. Right-click on the desired file
2. Select ‘Version History’ from the dropdown
3. Right-click on the desired version and select ‘Restore’

Access OneDrive files without consuming local storage

Offline access and On-Demand files are extremely useful OneDrive features. However, it’s important to understand the difference between the two before you decide which one to use.

Offline Access files are downloaded and synced to your personal computer. This way you can access them even when you’re not connected to the internet. 

On-Demand files are available only in the cloud and they are not downloaded to your personal computer. However, you can easily access them through File Explorer on your personal computer if you’re online. This saves you the time to navigate between apps.

You can learn more about these features and how to configure them using the Offline Access and On-Demand guides from Microsoft.

Access OneDrive from mobile devices

If you need to access your OneDrive files on the go, there are a few different ways to do it. You can

• Install the OneDrive app for Android and iOS devices
• Use the web interface on your mobile browser

Connect with family and friends through Group Sharing

You can add team members working on the same project in a OneDrive Family for better collaboration. This enables you to share files with the entire group at once instead of sending them individually. This way everyone within the group can access the files. 

It keeps everyone on the same page and ensures that they have up-to-date files. Read this guide by Microsoft to get started with group sharing in OneDrive.

Add extra security with a Personal Vault

If you’re storing sensitive information in your OneDrive account, you can add an extra layer of security by using the “Personal Vault” feature. This will encrypt your files and require additional authentication before providing access. 

When your Personal Vault is inactive for a certain length of time, OneDrive will automatically lock it. To know more about your Personal Vault, use this comprehensive guide from Microsoft.

Scan and Share your docs on the go 

At times, you need to quickly scan and share a document. These documents can include

With the OneDrive mobile app, you can use your phone’s camera to scan and upload documents. You can crop, rotate, make adjustments, or even sign the scanned document before sharing. This is a great feature if you’re on the go and need to quickly scan and share a document. 

To use this feature, follow these simple steps on your OneDrive mobile app:

1. Click on the Scan icon
2. Select the type of document
3. Tap the white circle icon to start scanning
4. Edit the image using editing tools
5. Hit Done
6. Name your file and click on Save