Troubleshooting Guide
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Chapter 12:
Online Storage with OneDrive
Cloud storage is quickly replacing the way we share and send files at home or at the workplace. There are many providers and services – from Dropbox to Google Drive, but OneDrive is Microsoft’s platform. It comes with Windows 8 and every Microsoft account is credited with several free Gigabytes of storage. In this guide we’ll explore how you can use OneDrive, and provide solutions to some basic errors and answers to community questions.
Microsoft OneDrive (formerly “SkyDrive”) is an online cloud storage solution that is integrated with every Microsoft account. It allows users to synchronize files across all of their Windows PCs, as well as the online platform that can be accessed from a web browser. Mobile operating systems such as Windows Phone, Android and iOS are also supported via the official OneDrive application.
In this guide we will show you how to set up OneDrive for personal and professional use.
The Basics of OneDrive
It’s really easy to get started with OneDrive, especially with Windows 8 and 8.1 that come with a pre-installed (native) OneDrive application. You can add files that are already on your PC to OneDrive by either copying them over or moving them from your PC into the OneDrive app.
When you create and save a new file, you can also choose to save it directly to the OneDrive platform. This makes it even easier to access it from any device and share the file with others. In addition to this, if your PC, tablet or mobile device has a built-in camera, you can automatically save copies of your photographs from your “camera roll” to OneDrive.
Every new OneDrive account starts with 15GB of free storage space, but you can purchase more if you need to. The packages are rather affordable and the pricing model is based on a monthly subscription. You are, of course, free to cancel at any time if you are not satisfied with the service or no longer have a need for it.
On the screenshot below you can see the current (April, 2015) pricing plans for additional OneDrive storage.
Adding Files to OneDrive from Your PC
Adding files to OneDrive is simple and easy. However, remember that you need to be signed in to a Microsoft account in order to use OneDrive storage. Here’s how to add files:
Head over to the Start Screen and click or tap on the OneDrive application to open it.
Browse through your One Drive folders and open the one where you want to add new files. By default, you will already have the folders “Documents” and “Pictures”, but you can create new ones too.
Now it’s time to open the app commands list. To do this, swipe in from the top or bottom edge of the screen or right-click inside the OneDrive application.
The app commands list will open at the bottom of the screen. Click or tap on Add files.
From the next dialogue window, select all the files that you wish to add to OneDrive and then click on the button Copy to OneDrive.
OneDrive will now connect to the online platform and upload these files to the server.
You can also add files to OneDrive by directly saving them to the server. For example, if you create a document in Word, you can click on Save (or Save As if the document is already saved on the desktop) and then select OneDrive from the left panel.
Uploading Files to OneDrive and Creating Files on the Web
You can head over to the OneDrive website and log in with your Microsoft account. There’s really no need to use the website if you are using your own Windows 8.1 PC. However, if you ever use a different machine or a different operating system, you can log in to the OneDrive website to access your files. Below you can see a screenshot of how the online OneDrive platform looks like.
To create a new file in OneDrive:
Click or tap on the Create button in the top bar and select the type of file you wish to create (only Microsoft office and .txt files are supported).
A new tab will open where you can edit the newly created file. In the screenshot below you can see a Word file that we created with OneDrive.
To upload a file to OneDrive:
Click or tap on the Upload button in the top bar.
A dialogue window will open and ask you to select your desired files.
Uploading can take a bit of time, depending on the size of the files. You will get a notification once the files have been successfully uploaded.
Saving Files to OneDrive Automatically
By default, you’ll see that OneDrive is chosen as the recommended location when you try to save a file from Microsoft office (for example, a Word .docx document). This is often very useful for professional use, as you will be sharing your documents with your colleagues and OneDrive is the best platform for that purpose. You can read more about sharing files with OneDrive if you’re interested in how this feature works.
To further improve your workflow with Microsoft OneDrive and Office, you might also want to automatically save files to your OneDrive Folder. Here’s how you can enable this option:
Open the Charms Bar, click or tap on Settings and then click or tap Change PC settings.
Click or tap on OneDrive and turn Save documents to OneDrive by default. This will save your Microsoft Office documents to OneDrive automatically every time.
If you want to save your photos to OneDrive as well, click or tap on Camera roll, and then choose Upload photos at good quality or Upload photos at best quality depending on the resolution that you want.
The Next Steps
After this brief introduction to OneDrive, you might want to check out the OneDrive FAQ in order to learn more tricks. We also recommend that you read through our guide on OneDrive security settings if you want to learn more about how you can secure your files and protect your privacy.
OneDrive makes it very easy to share photos, Office documents and other files (or entire folders) with friends and colleagues. There are a couple of ways you are able to share your files via OneDrive and you can choose the method that best works for you. In this guide we’ll go over all of them and show you step-by-step how to do it.
Your first steps will be to:
Head over the OneDrive website and log in.
Choose the files or folders that you want to share (select the check box in the upper-right corner of those files).
Click or tap on the Share link on the top of the page.
Now you will see three options: Invite people, Get a link and Publish to Facebook (for photos and videos).
All three of these options are explained separately below.
Invite People to View the Files via Email
You can invite people to view or even edit specific files via an email address. This allows you to give editing privileges to the invited users and that they must authenticate their identity with an email address that you provided. Here‘s how you can do this:
Follow the first two steps from the introduction. Select the option “Invite people”.
In the “To:” input box enter the email addresses of all the recipients. You can also write a short note if you wish in the field below.
The next step is to choose the permission level and for security reasons it’s important that you think this trough. You can click or tap on either of these two options:
a. Recipients can only view – this allows the recipients to view the files and folders that you’ve selected. They won’t be able to change the document itself.
b. Recipients can edit – this option allows the recipients to use Office Online to edit Office documents without signing in to their Microsoft account. They can also forward the document further to other people. They cannot delete or create new files.
By choosing Recipients can edit along with Recipients need to sign in with a Microsoft account, you can prevent other users from having the ability to further forward the files. This, however, requires the users to have a Microsoft account so that they can log in and view the file. If the user’s Microsoft account email address is different from the email where you sent the invitation they will still be able to view the files once they log in.
Once you’ve selected all the options, just click or tap on Send.
Create and Send a Link 
You can create a unique link that you can send to anyone. When they open the link, they will be able to view the file. This means that anyone can forward the link to a third party and as such, this option is not recommended for private or sensitive files.
Here’s how you can do this:
Follow the first two steps from the introduction. Select the option “Get link”.
Now you can choose the permission level for the link:
a. View only – anyone with the link can open and view the files and folders. They can also forward the link to others.
b. Edit – anyone with the link can edit the file. If they sign in with a Microsoft account they can even create or delete files.
c. Public – provides the same permissions as View only, but also makes it so that users can find the link via a search.
Once you’ve selected the permission level, click or tap on Create link.
You can now copy the link and share it via social media sites, forums, email etc.
Publish to Facebook
You can only select this option for photos and videos. Choosing this will publish those files directly to your Facebook account. If you’ve selected a photo, you’ll need to fill out the following:
- You can choose an existing album or create a new one via the lbum name box.
- If you choose to create a new album, you’ll be able to enter a name, description and choose the Facebook privacy settings you want to associate with the new album.
In case you’ve selected a video, you can just enter a description since videos are not sorted into albums on Facebook.
Click or tap on Publish once you’re ready to publish the files to Facebook.
If you are new to OneDrive then you are likely to experience a few problems with this platform. Fortunately, we’ve written a great introduction to using OneDrive that you can use to get started. In this document we’ve gone beyond the basics and compiled a list of the most common problems and questions regarding OneDrive and provided answers to all of them.
How to Recover Deleted Files in OneDrive
When you delete a file in OneDrive, it will be sent it into two Recycle Bin folders – the one in OneDrive and the one on your desktop. These two folders are fully synchronized. This means that you can delete or restore the file either by opening the Recycle Bin on your desktop or on the OneDrive website.
How to Buy More Storage
Currently, you can buy an extra 100 GB of storage for $1.99 USD month and 200 GB for $3.99 USD a month. In order to purchase more storage, do the following:
Open the Charms bar and click or tap on Settings.
Click or tap on Change PC Settings and then click or tap on OneDrive.
By default, you will have the File storage settings page open. Click or tap on the Buy more storage button (as seen below) and follow the on-screen instructions to complete your purchase.
Different countries and regions have different storage plans available. If you need to change the location of your PC, do the following:
Open the Charms bar and click or tap on Search.
In the search field type the text “region”.
From the search results, click or tap on Change your country or region.
Select the county or region from the list and apply the new settings.
How to Change the Default OneDrive Settings
Unfortunately, you cannot simply sign out and switch between different OneDrive accounts on your PC. Since your OneDrive account is directly connected with your Microsoft account, you would have to sign out from the PC and sign in with the other account. It might be easier to just share files and folders between the two OneDrive accounts.
If you don’t know how to add another user to your PC, read our guide on user management in Windows 8.1.
How to Check If Files are Still Downloading
There are three places where you can see the upload and download progress of your files: the OneDrive app, the File Explorer and the OneDrive notification icon in the right edge of the taskbar. Using the notification icon is the most intuitive and the fastest way to check a progress summary. Here’s a quick guide on how to use it:
Point to the OneDrive icon (
) in the notification area at the right edge of your taskbar.
Hovering over the icon displays some basic information. For more control, right click on the icon or press and hold and you can:
- Click or tap on Sync to open OneDrive to check for changes.
- Click or tap on Pause syncing to prevent files from uploading or downloading until you un-pause.
- Click or tap on Settings to see more options that you can customize. For example, here you can make all files available offline, or make all files accessible online-only.
How to Prevent OneDrive from Using the Network Bandwidth
While OneDrive is a powerful application and platform, it relies heavily on a good network connection. This means that users on a metered connection or a limited network can experience a lot of problems with OneDrive. In these cases it is best to disable OneDrive syncing altogether.
To temporarily disable syncing, follow the steps in the previous section to access the settings via the OneDrive notification icon. You can also turn off file syncing via the app itself:
Open the OneDrive app.
Open the Charms bar and then click or tap on Settings.
Click or tap on Options, and then turn off Sync files.
This is only a temporary solution. You can follow the same steps to turn Sync files back on when you are on a better connection.
In order to turn off syncing completely and disable all OneDrive activities on a metered connection, perform the following steps:
Open the Charms bar and click or tap on Settings.
Click or tap on Change PC settings and then click or tap on OneDrive.
Click or tap on Metered connections.
Now make sure that all the settings are set to Off.
Alternatively, you can only disable some of these options, depending on your network capabilities.
How to Earn Free Storage for OneDrive
You can earn additional storage on OneDrive for free thanks to Microsoft’s referral program (for example, it is very similar to Dropbox). For every friend that you refer, you will earn an additional 500MB of storage space. You can also get 15GB of storage when you set the camera roll on your device to back up onto OneDrive automatically. You can find further instructions when you log in to the OneDrive website.
When you upload files and folders to OneDrive, you are trusting Microsoft to guard your files on their servers in accordance with their terms of service. Aside from protecting your files from unauthorized requests (such as hacking attacks), Microsoft also secures your data by having multiple backups of the same files. This way, your data is safe from hardware failure and outside threats. You can learn more about Microsoft’s datacenters and their security on this link.
However, you are responsible for the security and privacy settings of your files, especially when it comes to sharing them. For example, it would be a very bad idea to accidentally set a folder as “public” and then upload personal documents to that folder. In order to avoid pitfalls such as these, you need to learn how to carefully manage your files and folders in OneDrive.
We’ve written an excellent guide to sharing files in OneDrive that explains the process in great detail and provides information on the privacy aspect of every option. If you are new to OneDrive, we recommend that you read it.
Review Shared Files and Folders
After you’ve shared files or folders, you can review and retract permissions – or even completely stop sharing them. Here’s how:
To see all shared items, click or tap on the Shared tab in the panel of the screen (as seen below).
Select the item that you wish to review and click or tap on the Share link in the top bar.
You can then navigate through the options and retract permissions from specific people or remove previously shared links.
For example, on the screenshot below you can see how we can remove a previously shared link. Users who click on it will no longer be able to see the files that were shared through that link.
Secure Your Account
Securing your Microsoft account is very important as it is a gateway to many other services, including OneDrive. Here are a few tips that you should follow in order to make sure that your account is secure:
Create a strong password and change it every few months. Microsoft has a password strength checker that we recommend you use, along with the valuable advice that’s listed there.
Add security information to your account. Log in to your Microsoft account and make sure you complete all of your security information. You should make sure to add:
- A phone number. When you confirm your phone number it will be very easy to verify your identity if you get hacked or forget your password.
- An alternate email address. With a different email address you will be able to easily retrieve lost passwords as well as security notifications.
- Security question and answer. Security questions and answers are used standard along with your phone number to confirm your identity in case of a security breach.
Enable two-step verification. This process helps protect your account by requiring you to enter a security code whenever you sign in on a device that isn’t trusted. Here’s how you can turn this feature on:
Log in to your Microsoft account and click or tap on Security & privacy.
In the Account Security column, click or tap on Manage advanced security.
Look under the Two-step verification section and choose Set up two-step verification to turn it on.
Follow the on-screen instructions to finish the setup.
