OneDrive redesign for 15th birthday with new features

Microsoft’s cloud storage service OneDrive is celebrating its 15th birthday. In the course of this, the company from Redmond announced a redesign of the solution, which among other things brings with it a new start page for the web version.

OneDrive redesign for its 15th birthday

Since the launch of OneDrive in 2007, Microsoft’s cloud storage solution has steadily evolved. On the occasion of its 15th birthday, Microsoft is addressing all users with a Thank you and is introducing a redesign of the service.

The main thing that has been completely redesigned is the start page of the web version, which, according to the company, should now help users to continue their work more easily and to keep up to date with the information that has been added during their own absence.

“Soon OneDrive will show the most relevant files and list your most recently used items, along with any activity updates, so you can see everything at a glance,” Microsoft says.

Visually, the new design, which is to be launched at an unspecified time in the near future, is reminiscent of the web version of the Microsoft Office suite. Also offered are practical filters, thanks to which you can directly display Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF files at a glance.

Additional features for OneDrive

Of course, the OneDrive redesign comes up with some new features. These include, for example, the activity bar, which is primarily intended for collaborative use of the cloud storage service.

Here you can find all comments, mentions, current changes to documents and even real-time co-authoring from and with colleagues or other people who share OneDrive. Here, recent as well as unseen changes are displayed in a nice and clear manner.

As an example, Microsoft cites the ability to directly view and access recent changes or comments made to a white paper on a new publication.

Documents and even entire document libraries can also be pinned to the “Quick access” section in the left navigation bar to quickly find the content you need more often. So far, however, Microsoft is only talking about integration with OneDrive for business and school users.

In addition, there are a few other features such as quick sharing of content via Microsoft Teams or the ability to share images and photos stored via OneDrive as a private feed with family or friends who can only access them by invitation.

The feature, called “OneDrive Photo Story,” had already launched in Australia and is expected to be made available in the U.S. and other regions before the end of 2022.

So while OneDrive is just getting new features, the Microsoft solution will soon have one less competitor to contend with. The cloud solution Amazon Drive will be discontinued at the end of 2023.