Microsoft’s OneDrive web version ushered in a major revision, new interface, new features_China IT News
IT Home News on May 3, Microsoft today announced a major revision of the OneDrive web version. This revision is mainly aimed at work and study users. Some functions are similar to the OneDrive consumer version, but most of the new features have not yet been launched.
“The new OneDrive experience for work and school starts with the OneDrive home page and includes the file experience across Microsoft 365,” Microsoft wrote in an announcement post. “This is a visual and functional upgrade designed to help you quickly access files, And keep your content organized in multiple ways without requiring you to do any organizing. New features and an upgraded design give you faster access to all your personal, shared and team files in OneDrive, increasing your productivity.”
A revamped OneDrive homepage is already available, but most of the new features are still in development. For example, a “For you” section, similar to the current consumer version of OneDrive, will display AI-powered file recommendations at the top of the home view. A new “Shared” view will show you files you’ve worked on with collaborators; Microsoft says the feature will be rolling out “this quarter.” New “People” and “Meetings” views will let you view files in a context-specific way, both coming later this year.
The “Recent” section on the home page now lets users view all files, or view them by Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF file category. In the future users will be able to filter the view and then search for specific types of files. Microsoft will also add the ability to change the color of any folder later this year. Files that users have marked as Favorites in Microsoft 365 Apps will appear in the new Favorites view. Later this year, users will also be able to create quick links to files in OneDrive.
For sharing, Microsoft is adopting the unified file sharing experience used in Microsoft 365, with a cleaner “copy link” experience. But that feature won’t arrive until later this year, too.
Microsoft will also bring all these updates to the OneDrive app in Microsoft Teams by the end of the year.
Perhaps the biggest change has to do with desktop integration: OneDrive for the web will support offline use “soon” and will add an “Open in App” option for non-Office file types (such as PDFs, images, videos, etc.). It will be available “later this year in OneDrive and SharePoint on the web, as well as in Microsoft Teams.”
Microsoft didn’t mention whether these features will be pushed to the consumer version of OneDrive, but given the shared code base, IT Home guesses that it should.