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The advantages of using OneDrive

You need to have access to all files online and offline in order for work to be done anywhere. Access to business information must be available and easy to find, with no compromises.
This is what digital natives and mobile professionals want. OneDrive delivers. OneDrive, the intelligent file app for Microsoft 365, is your conduit to access, share, and collaborate on all of your files from any device, anytime, anywhere.

Let’s take a look at the 5 top benefits of using OneDrive sync clients:

1. Stay connected and productive

OneDrive allows you to sync your content to your Mac and PC so that you can access files securely and easily from anywhere, even offline.

OneDrive makes it easy to sync files to your desktop.
Your edits and new files will automatically sync to OneDrive once you are back online. View and edit your files from your desktop. You can also collaborate in real time and share folders/files directly without having to use a web browser. Everyone who has access will always have the most recent version of these files.

“Known Folder Transfer” allows you to quickly backup important Windows folders such as Desktop, Documents, and Pictures to OneDrive. This brings the power and simplicity to OneDrive to folders where users are used to saving files.

You can backup your Windows folders such as Desktop, Documents, and Pictures with Known Folder Move.

OneDrive supports IRM-protected file syncing and differential sync. This saves bandwidth and time by only syncing files that have changed and not re-uploading entire files.

These scenarios can be supported in both persistent environments (sessions) and non-persistent environments (e.g. Windows Virtual Desktop).

2. More files equals more space

Do you worry about how much storage you have? OneDrive is there for you!
OneDrive Files on-Demand for Mac and PC allows you to access all your OneDrive files without downloading them all or using storage space. It doesn’t mean you have to change how you work. All your files, even online-only ones, can be viewed in File Explorer and Mac Finder.

These functionalities can also be extended to shared libraries. “Shared Libraries” are SharePoint document libraries connected through Office 365 Groups that can be accessed via SharePoint or Microsoft Teams integrated experiences.

OneDrive sync client now supports Windows Server 2019 with files on-demand. OneDrive users can now use Files on-Demand to run OneDrive in virtual desktop environments.

3. Access to files and folders beyond the individual ones

OneDrive is the file app for Microsoft 365. It allows you to access all of your shared content within Microsoft 365. This includes SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. OneDrive allows you to sync files from shared libraries within your organization, enabling you to have a seamless and secure productivity experience across SharePoint and OneDrive.

Files can be synced from folders or libraries that have been shared with other organizations (B2B). This means that content can be shared with others, not just your peers, but also customers, partners, suppliers, and third-party vendors that are outside your organization.

Administrators: Two quick notes on B2B sync

Azure Active Directory (AAD), guest accounts play an important role in B2B collaboration.
A guest account linked to a member account of another organization is a link. A single sign-in to the account allows access to content both from their organization and any other organizations that have created guest accounts.

4. Monitor your files and sync all actions

OneDrive Activity Center is your hub for all things OneDrive for Mac. You can access it by clicking on the OneDrive cloud icon in Windows’ task bar or Mac’s menu bar.

Activity Center allows you to manage various settings for account syncing on the device. It also lets you pause sync and resolve sync conflicts if they exist. In-app resolutions are now available to fix sync issues such as file and folder names that are not supported. Microsoft experts can be reached via the “Get help”, as well as your feedback. All of this is available in the Activity Center.

We introduced “mass delete prompts” earlier this year. The sync client will alert you if you accidentally delete more than 200 synced file at once from your device. To restore them if it was accidental, tap “Restore Files”, or tap remove to delete them as normal.

5. Administrators: Create a sync experience that is personalized with the most effective policies

We have kept the best for last, as always!
You can set up a group of GPOs to allow or block OneDrive accounts from specific organizations. This includes a list tenant IDs. It also allows you to configure the maximum speed at Which OneDrive client can upload/download files. Additionally, it can balance the performance of different upload tasks by specifying how much of the computer’s upload throughput the OneDrive client can use for uploading files.

You can also use the admin center to set rules to allow devices to be synchronized with a specific domain. Also, you can block certain file types being uploaded.