SkyDrive Is Now OneDrive

SkyDrive And OneDrive Are One

When saving a new Word 2013 document recently, you may have noticed something different. The option to save to SkyDrive has disappeared, and OneDrive has appeared in its place.

OneDrive is Microsoft's new SkyDrive (following a lawsuit in the UK from media company BSkyB).

What about all the files you had previously stored in SkyDrive? Your files are right where you left them, so you can sign in as usual to access them. SkyDrive is now OneDrive, but nothing has been rearranged or deleted during the update.

When uploading or downloading documents to OneDrive, you will see the familiar cloud icon in your system tray.

In addition to being able to access your OneDrive documents within Microsoft Word, you can also access them on the OneDrive website. You still get the decent 7GB of storage space, just like you did with SkyDrive, and you can gain 3GB of extra space when you enable your smartphone to automatically upload your photos.

The biggest change is that OneDrive users can now collaborate on documents with their colleagues in real time from any device. In the past, using SkyDrive, multiple users had access to documents but still had to edit them one user at a time, making it an unwieldy process to work on documents together. Now, you can see who is editing what, as you type.

Download OneDrive

You can even download OneDrive on a variety of devices:

• PC/Mac
• Windows tablet
• Android
• iOS
• Windows phone
• Xbox

As mentioned above, the bog standard free account gives you 7GB of storage, but you can pay for extra storage (see OneDrive Plans).