Getting Started with OneDrive

OneDrive is a cloud storage service that allows you to store and access your files from anywhere.

You can sign up for a free OneDrive account with 5 GB of storage space, which is a great starting point for most users.

To get started with OneDrive, download the OneDrive app on your device, which is available for both Windows and macOS.

With OneDrive, you can easily sync your files across all your devices, so you can access them from your computer, phone, or tablet.

To use OneDrive, you need a Microsoft account, which you can get for free if you sign up. If your company uses Microsoft 365 or you have an Outlook.com account, you already have a Microsoft account.

You can start with 5GB of OneDrive storage for free, but you can upgrade to 100GB storage or more by subscribing to a Microsoft 365 plan, which starts at $2 per month.

Business customers can subscribe to a 1TB OneDrive for Business plan for $5 per user per month, or opt for a Microsoft 365 plan.

OneDrive allows users to browse, view and organize files stored on their cloud storage, and Microsoft has released client applications for various platforms including Android, iOS, Windows 7, and more.

You can also use OneDrive to synchronize your entire storage with your computer for offline access, as well as between multiple computers. This feature is available on desktop applications for Windows and macOS.

Here are the key features of OneDrive:

OneDrive also integrates itself in Windows 7 and later, enabling users to access documents, photos and videos stored on their account, and it's also integrated in Microsoft Office 2010 and later.

OneDrive allows users to create files and folders, and upload files and folders to their cloud storage. You can also preview files directly from the app.

The OneDrive client app is available for various platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Key features of the OneDrive client app include the ability to sync files and folders across devices, share files and folders with others, and access documents, photos, and videos stored on your OneDrive account.

Here are some of the key features of OneDrive:

The OneDrive client app integrates itself in Windows 7 and later, as well as Microsoft Office 2010 and later, enabling users to access documents, photos, and videos stored on their OneDrive account.

Office Online allows users to upload, create, edit and share Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents directly within a web browser.

You can view the version history of Office documents stored on OneDrive, which is super useful for keeping track of changes made by multiple users.

Multiple users can simultaneously co-author Excel documents in a web browser, and co-author OneNote documents with another web user or the desktop application.

OneDrive includes an online text editor that allows users to view and edit files in plain text format, such as text files and batch files.

This online editor includes syntax highlighting and code completion for a number of programming and markup languages, including C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript, Windows PowerShell, CSS, HTML, XML, PHP and Java.

The online text editor also has a find-and-replace feature and a way to manage file merging conflicts.

OneDrive's file management features make it easy to organize your files. You can create folders and subfolders to categorize your files, and even share them with others.

With OneDrive, you can access your files from anywhere, on any device with an internet connection. This means you can work on a file at home, save it to OneDrive, and then access it from your office computer.

OneDrive also allows you to view and edit files directly within the app, without having to download them first. This is especially useful for large files or files that you don't want to take up space on your device.

To make your files or folders available offline, right-click any file or folder in your OneDrive and select Always keep on this device.

This will download a copy of the file or folder to your PC's main storage drive, making it accessible even when you're not connected to the internet. If you have a lot of files in your OneDrive, it may take a while for them to be all downloaded, especially if some are large in size.

To download all the files and folders in your OneDrive to your PC, right-click your OneDrive in the navigation pane on the left and select Always keep on this device. This can be a convenient option if you frequently need to access your files offline.

However, be aware that if you choose to download all your files, it may take up a significant amount of space on your PC's storage drive. To free up space, right-click the downloaded file or folder and select Free up space.

Quota is a crucial aspect of file management, especially when working with cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive. These services often have storage limits, which can be a problem if you store large files or have a lot of data.

For example, Dropbox has a standard storage limit of 2 GB for free accounts. This means you can store up to 2 GB of files without paying a subscription fee.

To avoid running out of storage space, you can upgrade your account to a paid plan, which offers more storage capacity. For instance, Dropbox's Plus plan offers 2 TB of storage space.

Another way to manage your quota is to delete unnecessary files and folders. This will free up space on your account and help you stay within your storage limit.

Regularly cleaning up your files and folders can also help prevent quota-related issues. This is especially important if you're working with large files or have a lot of data to manage.

OneDrive's versioning system is a double-edged sword. It keeps older versions of all files for up to 30 days, which is a great feature for collaboration and file recovery.

However, this means that every change in a file creates a new version, which counts against a user's quota. For example, changing the modification time of a file creates a second version, so the file apparently uses twice the space.

You can use the rclone cleanup command to remove all old versions, but be aware that Onedrive Personal creates versions (but not for setting the modification time) and the API for removing them returns "API not found", so cleanup and no_versions should not be used on Onedrive Personal.

The rclone team has provided a flag called --onedrive-no-versions to check for versions after file upload and setting modification time and removes all but the last version. This flag is a bool type and can be set in the config as no_versions or as an environment variable RCLONE_ONEDRIVE_NO_VERSIONS. It defaults to false.

Here are the details of the --onedrive-no-versions flag:

Downloading files from OneDrive can be a breeze, especially when you need to grab a bunch of files at once. Entire folders can be downloaded as a single ZIP file.

The single download limit is 15 GB, so make sure you have enough space on your device to accommodate that.

You can also include up to 10,000 files in a single ZIP file, which is super handy for large projects or collaborations.

Deleting files can be a bit tricky with rclone, especially when it comes to permanently deleting them. Microsoft doesn't provide an API to delete files permanently, so you'll need to use one of Microsoft's apps or the OneDrive website to empty the trash.

Files you delete with rclone will end up in the trash, and you can't delete them permanently from within rclone. This is because Microsoft doesn't provide a way to do it directly.

If you want to permanently delete files, you can use the --onedrive-hard-delete flag with rclone. This flag causes files to be permanently deleted, but use it with care.

You can also set the hard_delete flag in your rclone config or use the RCLONE_ONEDRIVE_HARD_DELETE environment variable to enable permanent deletion. This feature only works for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint document libraries, not personal accounts.

Here are the ways to configure permanent deletion:

If you're like me, you might have a few folders in OneDrive that you don't want cluttering up File Explorer. You can hide those folders from view.

To do this, right-click your OneDrive in the navigation pane and select OneDrive and Settings. This will open a new panel where you can customize your OneDrive settings.

Click on Account in the left column and then click the Choose folders button. This will bring up a list of all your OneDrive folders.

You can upgrade that old PC to Windows 11, even if Microsoft says no, as some readers have proven.

You can turn off OneDrive folder backup completely, but be aware that your files will still be in two places.

To do this, open File Explorer, right-click the OneDrive icon, and choose OneDrive > Manage OneDrive Backup.

Slide the On/Off switch to the left (Off) position for each folder where backup is currently turned on, and then click Save Changes.

Windows will reset the default location of those known folders to the ones in your local user profile, but your saved files will still be in the local OneDrive folders.

You'll need to open those folders and copy their contents back to your local drive to regain easy access.

You can move your files back to the default folder in your user profile by double-clicking the shortcut, selecting all files with Ctrl+A, cutting them with Ctrl+X, and then pasting them in the correct location with Ctrl+V.

Using folder backup sparingly is a hybrid approach that allows you to take advantage of Microsoft's 5 GB of free OneDrive cloud storage.

Create separate archive folders for older files you want to back up locally, not in the cloud, to stay under the 5 GB limit.

List Chunk is a feature that helps manage large lists of files on OneDrive. It's configured by the --onedrive-list-chunk flag or the list_chunk setting in the config file.

The default value for this setting is 1000, which means that OneDrive will create versions of files when uploading new ones overwriting existing ones and when setting the modification time. If you want to change this value, you can use the --onedrive-list-chunk flag or the list_chunk setting in the config file.

Here are the details about how to configure the List Chunk setting:

In special circumstances, you might need to access a specific OneDrive folder, but you can't get there through a path traversal. This is where the Root Folder ID comes in.

The Root Folder ID is a unique identifier for your OneDrive root folder, and it's not normally needed, but it's good to know about it.

You can specify the Root Folder ID through configuration or environment variables.

To set the Root Folder ID through configuration, you can use the `root_folder_id` option.

You can also set it through an environment variable, specifically `RCLONE_ONEDRIVE_ROOT_FOLDER_ID`.

When managing your files, it's essential to understand how to customize the description for your files. You can configure the description in the config settings.

The description is a string type of field, which means it's a text-based input. To set the description, you can use the RCLONE_ONEDRIVE_DESCRIPTION environment variable.

Here are the details about the description field:

This means you can choose to include a description for your files, but it's not mandatory.

Metadata plays a crucial role in file management, and understanding how to control it can save you a lot of time and effort.

Reading permissions metadata from files can be done quickly, but it isn't always desirable to set the permissions from the metadata.

To control whether permissions should be read or written in metadata, you can use the `metadata_permissions` config option or the `RCLONE_ONEDRIVE_METADATA_PERMISSIONS` environment variable.

Here are the details you need to know:

Setting metadata permissions to "off" means that permissions will not be set from the metadata, which can be a useful option if you don't want to overwrite existing permissions.

OneDrive is case insensitive, so you can't have a file called "Hello.doc" and another called "hello.doc" with the same name.

This can lead to confusion, especially if you're working on a team or sharing files with others.

You can't have certain characters in OneDrive file names, like the question mark (?), which is common on non-Windows platforms.

These characters will be mapped to their unicode equivalents, such as ? being mapped to ？.

For more information on the limitations for different types of OneDrive, you can check out an official document here.

When you're working with files, it's essential to know the maximum size you can store. The largest allowed file size is 250 GiB for both OneDrive Personal and OneDrive for Business.

This size limit is crucial to keep in mind, especially when working with large video or image files. Knowing this limit can help you plan your file storage accordingly.

OneDrive's file size limit is the same for both personal and business accounts, making it easy to manage your files across different accounts.

Path Length is a crucial consideration when managing files. The entire path, including the file name, must contain fewer than 400 characters for OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint Online.

If you're using encryption, be aware that encrypted names are typically longer than original ones. This can lead to issues if you're not mindful of the path length.

For example, if you're using rclone to encrypt file and folder names, you'll want to keep an eye on the path length to avoid any problems.

OneDrive can handle at least 50,000 files in a folder without issues.

However, rclone may struggle to list the contents of a directory with over 100,000 files, resulting in errors like "couldn't list files: UnknownError:".

Live Photos from iOS can be uploaded to OneDrive, but they're a bit finicky. They're stored as small video clips in .heic files, which was introduced by the iOS OneDrive app in 2020.

These Live Photos can cause issues when copying, synchronizing, or mounting, especially with rclone and the native OneDrive client on Windows. Unfortunately, the usage and download of these uploaded Live Photos is still a work in progress.

If you download a Live Photo from the OneDrive web interface, you'll notice it's smaller than the size displayed in the web interface. This is because the downloaded file only contains a single frame, or still photo, extracted from the Live Photo.

Adding --ignore-size to your rclone copy/sync command can work around the issue of recopying unmodified photos. However, this will only sync the still-picture, not the movie clip, and relies on modification dates being correctly updated on all files.

Rclone check will also report size errors due to the different sizes of the Live Photos, which can be suppressed by adding --ignore-size.

Managing your files on a mobile device is a breeze. You can get the OneDrive mobile app for Apple or Android.

To access your files on the go, simply download the OneDrive app from the App Store for Apple devices or Google Play Store for Android devices.

The OneDrive app allows you to view and manage your files directly from your mobile device, making it easy to stay organized no matter where you are.

You can share files or folders in OneDrive for Windows by right-clicking the file or folder in File Explorer and selecting OneDrive and then Share.

To share a file or folder with specific people, you can enter their email addresses in the Share panel and choose their access level, such as Can edit or Can view.

You can also share a file or folder with all co-workers by clicking the gear icon and selecting People in [your organization name] under Share the link with.

The default access permission for a public link is Can edit, which allows anyone who clicks the link to view, download, and make changes to the file or folder. You can change this setting by clicking the gear icon and selecting a different access permission.

To fine-tune access permissions for a public link, you can set an expiration date or password-protect the file or folder.

To share a file or folder with specific people, you can use the Share panel in OneDrive. You can enter their email addresses in the first field, and if they're in your Outlook contacts, you can start typing their name and select from the suggestions that pop up.

You can also choose the access level for the file or folder, which determines what the invitees can do with it. The options are: Can edit, Can view, and Can't download. If you choose Can edit, the invitees can view the file or folder, download it, forward its link to others, and make changes to it.

Here are the access level options in more detail:

You can enter a brief message for the recipients to read, then click Send. An email will be sent to the recipients that contains a link to your file or folder that only they can open.

SharePoint Size/Hash Differences can be a real pain point for users. It's a known issue that SharePoint silently modifies uploaded files, mainly Office files like .docx and .xlsx.

This can cause file size and hash checks to fail. If you're using rclone with these affected files on SharePoint, you may need to disable these checks with specific command line arguments.

Alternatively, if you have write access to the OneDrive files, you can try fixing the problem by converting the files to a different format. Open the web interface for OneDrive, find the affected files, and click on each one to open it on the web.

This will convert the file in place to a format that's functionally equivalent but no longer triggers the size discrepancy. Once all problematic files are converted, you won't need to use the ignore options anymore.

OneDrive's folder backup feature syncs your local files to the cloud, creating a backup strategy that protects you from ransomware attacks. If you've paid for a Microsoft 365 subscription, you have 1 TB of OneDrive space available, which should be enough to handle backup needs for most people.

The three folders at the top of the list - Desktop, Documents, and Pictures - are being synced to OneDrive by default. You can turn this backup feature off or on by right-clicking your OneDrive in the navigation pane on the left in File Explorer.

To turn off folder backup, simply click the toggle switch to the left of each folder name to turn backup off. This will stop syncing your local files to the cloud.

Windows has a feature that automatically backs up your files to OneDrive, but it's not exactly what you think it is. It moves your files to the cloud and syncs them across all your devices.

If you've paid for a Microsoft 365 subscription, you have 1 TB of OneDrive space available, which is a lot of space. This means you can safely sync your local files to your 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage.

The three folders at the top of this list are being synced to OneDrive: Desktop, Documents, and Pictures. To turn off folder backup, slide the switches to the left.

To turn this backup feature off or on, right-click your OneDrive in the navigation pane on the left in File Explorer. From the menu that opens, select OneDrive and Settings.

The panel that opens will show if the Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders on your Windows PC are being backed up to your OneDrive. You can click the toggle switch to the right of each folder name to turn backup for it off or on.

If you click the "Back up now" button during the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) screen, some of your files move to the OneDrive folder and begin syncing to the cloud.

Here's a summary of the folders that can be backed up to OneDrive:

When working with cloud storage services like OneDrive, security is a top priority. You can obtain a token to authenticate with OneDrive.

A token can be provided through the command line using the `--onedrive-token` option. This option is not required, but it does allow for authentication.

You can also store your token in a configuration file or as an environment variable. The environment variable is named `RCLONE_ONEDRIVE_TOKEN`.

If you have a token URL, you can use the `--onedrive-token-url` option to authenticate with OneDrive. This option also allows for authentication, but it's not required.

Here's a summary of the token options:

You can use either the token or token URL to authenticate with OneDrive, but the token is not required.

In rclone, the hash type used for OneDrive is crucial for security and backup purposes. The default hash type is QuickXorHash, which is used for all OneDrive types since rclone 1.62.

You can specify the hash type to use by setting the "onedrive-hash-type" option. This option can be set to "auto", which uses the default QuickXorHash, or to a specific hash type like SHA1.

SHA1 was the default hash type for OneDrive Personal before rclone 1.62, but it's no longer the default. If you want to use SHA1, you'll need to set the option accordingly.

From July 2023, QuickXorHash will be the only available hash type for both OneDrive for Business and OneDrive Personal.

Here are the available hash types and their corresponding options:

Keep in mind that if the requested hash type does not exist on the object, it will be returned as an empty string, which is treated as a missing hash by rclone.

Personal Vault is a protected area in OneDrive where users can store their most important or sensitive files and photos. It's like a safe deposit box for your digital life.

To access Personal Vault, you'll need a strong authentication method or a second step of identity verification, such as fingerprint, face, PIN, or a code sent via email or SMS.

This extra layer of security is designed to keep your sensitive files and photos safe from unauthorized access.

One thing to keep in mind is that Personal Vault is not available in the macOS app, so if you're using a Mac, you won't be able to access it through OneDrive.