Microsoft OneDrive

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OneDrive is Microsoft's answer to Google Drive and iCloud. Well, that's not entirely accurate since it preceded those cloud storage and syncing services by at least five years. Over its development, OneDrive's functionality and design have become nearly flawless. We especially like its rich feature set, sleek apps for all major platforms, and top-notch sharing and collaboration abilities. OneDrive's deep integration with Microsoft 365 and Windows, along with its completeness, reliability, and polish, earn it our Editors' Choice award and a rare five-star rating.

What Can OneDrive Do and What's New?

Like Google Drive and iCloud, OneDrive serves a lot of functions. If you just want access to documents or media files, it gives you simple online storage that's accessible from the web. If you want to replicate the same set of files on multiple PCs, it provides folder syncing. Windows 11 users can even back up device settings, installed apps, personalization options, and more via Windows Backup. If you sign in to a new PC with your Microsoft account, OneDrive can add all the desktop icons from your old one, too. Finally, OneDrive syncs Microsoft 365 documents and enables live coauthoring within that office suite's apps.

Microsoft continues to add capabilities to OneDrive, including Copilot generative AI tools. Unfortunately, for most users, nearly all of the new features require a business or education version of Microsoft 365. Among those features are an AI-powered home screen, color-coded folders, extra sharing and collaboration options, and offline syncing in the web app.

The redesigned home screen has filtering options, a For You section with personalized suggestions, and a People view that organizes files based on who you have shared them with (you can specify a folder color for these). Microsoft has demoed a Copilot sidebar (like that in the Edge browser) that uses AI to find, summarize, and suggest edits for work documents—but again, that's just for organizations. I expect more AI features in the future and hope to see many of these features become available for the consumer version.

How Much Does OneDrive Cost?

If you have a Microsoft account, you already have access to OneDrive (along with the web versions of Excel, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word). The same goes for if you ever signed up for a Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com email account. You can also sign up with an email from any other provider.

Free users get 5GB of storage space, though students can get 5TB free. A web iCloud account gets you just 1GB free, but Apple upgrades that to 5GB if you buy an eligible Apple device. Dropbox gives you just 2GB for free. IDrive (which offers full backup capabilities) gives you 10GB. Google Drive gives you 15GB, though Gmail attachments count toward that allotment. Disappointingly, Microsoft followed Google in this policy; Outlook.com email attachments now count against your storage space. If you started with the previously separate 15GB allotment for Outlook.com, however, you get to keep it.

If you need more storage, the next step up is a Microsoft 365 account. The Basic tier, which costs $19.99 per year, gets you 100GB of storage, more advanced file-sharing options, and ransomware protection. The Personal plan, which goes for $69.99 per year, increases your cloud storage space to 1TB, lets you download the premium versions of the Office apps, and unlocks additional protection via Microsoft Defender. You can add 200GB of storage for an additional $1.99 per month or 1TB for $9.99 per month. The $99.99-per-year Family plan provides 1TB of storage each for up to six people for a total of 6TB.

For comparison, Apple iCloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive (via a Google One subscription) all offer a $9.99-per-month plan with 2TB of cloud storage. Apple and Google offer their own suites of productivity apps that can take advantage of their cloud storage.

How Does OneDrive Syncing Work?

The OneDrive desktop syncing app runs on Windows 10 and 11 and macOS 10.14 or later. There are workarounds for Linux but no first-party client app. The OneDrive mobile app runs on Android 6.0 or later and iOS 15 or later. It's also available in the Amazon Appstore for Fire tablets.

The desktop syncing app installs quickly and lets you create an account if you don't have one. The setup shows how your OneDrive folder will appear in Windows Explorer (or Finder); it uses a blue cloud icon instead of a traditional folder icon. The setup process also places a cloud icon in your system tray, from which you can open your synced folder or change settings.

When you place a document, photo, or other item in the OneDrive folder, it automatically uploads to the cloud and appears in any of the other OneDrive clients you use. You can now upload files of up to 250GB in size. That's larger than most people will ever need but not as big as Google Drive's 5TB maximum (though there are some file type limitations). You can share any files or folders in OneDrive storage with either viewing or editing privileges. Paid Microsoft 365 users can password-protect shared files, as well as set expiration times for sharing. Apple and Google's cloud services don't have either of those features at any plan level, though some third-party workarounds are available. Dropbox offers this functionality with select paid tiers.

For a quick test of cross-platform syncing, I installed OneDrive on both an iMac and a Windows desktop. I then created a new folder in the OneDrive app, which appeared a couple of seconds later in the Mac's OneDrive folder. OneDrive's Windows Explorer integration is incredibly helpful because it means you can save work from any application to your cloud storage directly. That includes apps that autosave files. I should note, however, that the Google Drive and iCloud desktop utilities can do the same.

Additional OneDrive Capabilities

Among OneDrive's most important features are device syncing, folder and file syncing, Personal Vault, folder backup, and synced Microsoft 365 collaboration.

Device Syncing

OneDrive can sync settings and apps on all your Windows desktops, laptops, and tablets. Clients for Android, iOS, and macOS give you access to the files you sync to OneDrive's online folders.

On Android and iOS devices, the OneDrive app can automatically upload photos and videos you take to a camera roll. Other services have this option, too. With this feature active, it's quick and easy to view your images and videos within the OneDrive folder on your PC, Windows Photos app, the web, or any other OneDrive app you use.

Folder and File Syncing

OneDrive's file and folder syncing are similar to what you get from Dropbox and SugarSync. In the past, Microsoft had separate storage and syncing services, but combining them makes much more sense. Unlike SugarSync, OneDrive (like Dropbox) keeps all your synced files under its umbrella folder. In other words, you can't sync a particular folder on one computer to one on another. However, that approach gets messy, and most other services don't support that type of setup either.

Personal Vault

OneDrive's Personal Vault adds an extra degree of security for files. When you enable your Personal Vault, you must use multi-factor authentication to open it. This can take the form of a security code to your authenticator app, email, or phone, though the first option provides the best security. BitLocker encrypts these files locally, which lock after a set number of minutes of inactivity (which varies by device). It's not possible to share these files accidentally.

Folder Backup

Unlike true backup services, OneDrive doesn't let you sync any file in every folder on your local drive to the cloud. That means system files are off-limits, though they wouldn't be compatible with all the platforms you might use OneDrive on anyway. The Backup choice in Settings does let you protect the most important use folders, however: Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. These folders don't have to live inside the OneDrive folder for you to sync them, either. This capability is a great help if you get a new PC and want your important files to appear on it automatically.

Synced Microsoft 365 Collaboration

When you create a document in a Microsoft 365 app like Word or Excel and save it to OneDrive, it becomes accessible from any OneDrive client and ready for real-time collaborative editing. You can also collaborate via the online versions of the Office apps.

For more specific tips and guidance, see our guide on how to manage, sync, and share files in OneDrive.

OneDrive in Windows 11

With Windows 11, OneDrive is more of a built-in capability than a separate web service. You see OneDrive in the File Explorer, and you can choose whether to sync all or just some OneDrive folders. Results in Windows desktop searches include OneDrive files, and Windows 11's Media Player can play music files you upload to it.

The Windows 11 version of OneDrive has a slick Settings panel where you can set options for Files On Demand, PC backup, and more.

Microsoft no longer supports the OneDrive store app for Windows and instead points users to install the web version as a PWA, or progressive web app. This allows offline functionality for things like viewing and renaming files and opening local apps like Word directly from the OneDrive web app. Unfortunately, these capabilities are available only for organizational accounts.

Files on Demand

One of OneDrive's best features is its implementation of Files on Demand. This feature, which is on by default, means you don't have to fill up every connected computer's hard drive with every file stored in your OneDrive storage. Instead, as the name implies, OneDrive downloads files on-demand only when you open them. This feature is available in the macOS OneDrive client, too.

You can still designate some or all folders and files to keep offline. A column in File Explorer called Status shows a cloud icon for online files and folders with a circled checkmark for those that are local. Files pending upload get a circular icon with an arrow. In testing, the Files on Demand feature worked flawlessly. Google's Drive client offers a similar capability. Apple's iCloud Drive still lacks such a feature on Windows, though it works in that mode by default on iOS and macOS.

OneDrive Apps for Other Platforms

Apart from offering the aforementioned Android and iOS apps, Microsoft lets you share game clips from your Xbox to OneDrive storage. The mobile apps also work on Android tablets and iPads, though the web interface is an option on those devices, too.

I tested both the Android and iOS apps. They let you not only view documents, photos, and videos in your OneDrive storage but also upload files. They helpfully group photos by autogenerated tags such as #animal, #building, #people, and so on. You can share files to any apps on your phone, via an email link (with view only, edit, and expiration options), or by copying them to your phone's clipboard. A search capability and the aforementioned Automatically Upload to OneDrive feature round out the experience. Google Drive also offers a search box in its web interface, but iCloud unfathomably lacks this capability.

Free mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can easily open any documents from OneDrive storage. The web version of OneDrive also has an easily accessible drop-down menu of tiles for online versions of Microsoft's Office apps. Documents you create in Office apps sync automatically across all your OneDrive clients.

Media Support

Microsoft's cloud service plays and displays all the most common types of files you might want to store in the cloud, including documents, music, photos, and videos. Here's a rundown of how it handles each:

Documents

You can download and upload documents to OneDrive, as well as view and edit them via either the online or local apps. OneDrive serves as the default save location for all the documents you create with those apps, just as Google Drive does for Google Docs. And just like with Google Docs, multiple authors can edit documents at the same time. An icon shows who's typing where, and the document's content updates in real time. Microsoft 365 Online has better document-formatting fidelity than Google Docs in terms of layout and fonts, and the option to use either the web client or a local app is another advantage. One disadvantage that both share is that you can't see a clean version of your document while revisions mode is on; they force you to see a lot of underlined and crossed-out text. OneDrive's Shared view lets you see all the files you've collaborated on at a glance.

I didn't have any problem viewing Microsoft file formats like Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and Word documents via OneDrive on any platform.

Music

Windows 11's Media Player and Windows 10's Groove app let you play songs directly from OneDrive, though you must download these files first. OneDrive's web version can stream songs, as can Google Drive. The same is not possible with iCloud, and Apple Music can't access songs from iCloud, either.

Photos and Video

OneDrive does an impressive job of displaying photos and videos in its web interface. As mentioned, it even tags images using AI like Flickr, grouping, for example, all photos of buildings, crowds, or dogs. You can add tags manually, too. These tagging features are useful for narrowing search results. Google Photos has a similar search capability, but it doesn't explicitly show you the tags. Both of those services also let you see a map with a photo's real-world location if it has that information, as well as EXIF camera data. Apple's iCloud web interface has no search or tagging capabilities.

When you share a photo from OneDrive, the recipient doesn't have to sign into a Microsoft account unless you grant edit rights rather than just viewing ones. When you share a video, the cloud service transcodes it on the fly using MPEG-DASH to match the capabilities of the receiver's bandwidth. This ensures that people you share a video with won't have to download an unnecessarily large file. I tried sharing a video to a phone with just three bars of LTE connectivity, and it played very smoothly.

OneDrive also offers optical character recognition (OCR), meaning it can extract text from images. If you save a photo with text in it to your cloud storage, the Info panel for it will include an extracted text area. You can then click to cut and paste it anywhere. Google Drive's help talks about OCR, but it's not in the Drive interface. You need to open the image in Google Docs to get that functionality. You can forget about any OCR in iCloud, though Dropbox offers it for business accounts.

OneDrive, surprisingly, also lets you edit photos. You get effective tools for adjusting color and lighting, cropping, and rotating. It doesn't provide an auto-correct button, though you can apply and adjust several effect filters. Note that editing works for HEIC files as well as JPGs and PNGs. You can view but not edit raw camera files.

Using OneDrive With Other Apps

Practically any Windows app or web service can take advantage of OneDrive's cloud storage. ACDSee Photo Studio lets you open and save edited images to OneDrive, for example. Integrations for business installations of OneDrive include Wrike, Vimeo, Zapier, and Zoom. Business users can open a file directly from OneDrive on the web in its native app. For example, if you have PDFs set to open in Adobe Acrobat, you can launch them in that app.

Is Your Data Safe With OneDrive?

Microsoft cites "advanced encryption, compliance, and other enterprise-grade security features" as it pertains to protecting your OneDrive data. The service supports multi-factor authentication and has at-rest and in-transit encryption for all users and file types. It's not a zero-knowledge system, but the company doesn't allow staff standing access to data keys. According to OneDrive's documentation, Microsoft "maintains a 'zero-standing access' policy, which means that engineers do not have access to the service unless it is explicitly granted in response to a specific incident that requires elevation of access."

The company also says it proactively monitors for threats: "OneDrive and Office 365 maintain robust, real-time security monitoring systems. Among other issues, these systems raise alerts for attempts to illicitly access customer data, or for attempts to illicitly transfer data out of our service." After more than a decade in operation, there haven't been any major breaches of OneDrive, which inspires confidence. If absolute privacy for your cloud files is your primary concern, however, you should check out Proton Drive.

Finally, OneDrive has the aforementioned Personal Vault, which requires extra authentication whenever you want to access it.

Verdict: One Place for Your Digital Life

OneDrive's smooth integrations with Microsoft 365 and Windows, collaborative document editing features, security options, strong photo tools, and wide platform support earn it a perfect five-star rating and our Editors' Choice award for cloud storage and syncing. Our only (minor) complaint is that some features require an organizational account. Fellow Editors' Choice winner Google Drive is also excellent, especially if you rely on Google's online ecosystem for email and productivity, but OneDrive still has an edge thanks to its unrivaled flexibility and comprehensiveness.