What do you use skydrive for

You might also find it useful for backing up your data, so you have an off-site backup location in case of a disaster or theft. When the service started back in , Microsoft only offered 5 GB of storage space, but in increased the quota to 25 GB while still keeping it totally free. You can upload or download files to SkyDrive via your browser or through Microsoft Office applications. Furthermore, you can access your SkyDrive folders and files right inside Windows by using free, third-party utilities.

This will give you quick and easy access to your online storage. SDExplorer is one utility you can use. The free edition supports the basic functionality of SkyDrive and the premium edition offers even more features, such as the ability to change the share modes.

Another third-party utility is the Gladinet Cloud Desktop. It mounts a new drive letter in Windows. You open that drive and click the SkyDrive directory to access your online storage.

Double-click on a folder and it will bring up a Save dialog:. You can create, edit and share documents right inside a Web browser. The figure below shows Word:. When linking to an uploaded file, you can decide whether you want the file to be editable or not. You can also change the privacy of your files, to ensure only people that are logged into SkyDrive can see them.

Each time a file is altered, it will be saved to the cloud, so everyone can see the updated file. When the file is completed, you can embed it onto your personal website using SkyDrive as a host. Nick Richards has contributed to various online and print publications, specializing in the field of technology. He is an Apple-certified professional and holds a master's degree in post-production editing from the University of Bournemouth. By Nick Flegg. Connect with us. Sign up. Term of the Day.

Best of Techopedia weekly. News and Special Offers occasional. Techopedia Explains SkyDrive. What Does SkyDrive Mean? We wanted to give you fast scrolling of photos without taking up a lot of local disk space. When you flip through photos, we download large thumbnail images instead of the actual files. And we pre-fetch thumbnails to enable fast scrolling.

Combined, placeholder files and smart thumbnails allow you to see and interact with your entire SkyDrive without taking up much local disk space and only using your Internet connection when needed.

Early data in the weeks since Windows 8. So to put a fine point on that, using placeholder files, someone who has GB of files in SkyDrive that have been built up across many devices and years, can now have all of those files available on their new Windows 8. This is an explicit, easy-to-understand way to have guaranteed offline access to the files you most care about.

Any Windows Store app can use the Windows file picker to let you open, edit, and save any kind of file. In Windows 8.