Windows SkyDrive is a nice little online storage spot to dump some of your files you’d like to be able to grab anytime, anywhere. Open to of course, Windows Live (Passport) customers all it takes is a simple visit and login and you’re up and running. They’re offering 5GB of space which is a nice chunk of storage to dump all your important files of all types.
Getting Started
To get started, point your browser to SkyDrive and sign in. You’ll have to have a Windows Live (Passport) account to use their services. Once you sign in and accept the EULA, you’ll be able to get started uploading some of your important backup files.
SkyDrive Dropbox
The SkyDrive dropbox is easy to navigate and look at with all the shortcuts at a simple glance. Listed below are the folders I have.
The personal folders have a default setting of not sharing their contents. This is of course the security level that most users are going to want to stick with. One nice feature is the “Public Folders” section whereby you can upload anything and make it visible to the world or just a select few of your contacts. The default for the “Public Folders” is obviously, viewable to all.
As a matter of fact, each folder gives you that explicit ability….to add/remove anyone from your contact list or just by email as a reader or viewer of your documents.
Uploads
Uploading content to SkyDrive is as easy as uploading a picture to Flickr or any other upload site.
Just point your “Browse” button to any file on your hard drive or network drive and SkyDrive will take care of the rest.
The only drawback to this service is that you’re locked into only 50MB uploads per file. This should not be a problem for most users, but worth mentioning anyway.
Coming up soon on MakeUseOf.com, we’ll be reviewing lots of online storage web applications and their respected features. Stay tuned.
MakeUseOf Recommends
More articles about:
Hide 14 Comments
Sky Drive is a fantastic uploading site and i’ve been using it from the day of launch.. initially it was 500MB yes 500MB.
But I thought these guys will learn but nah they are the same adamant microsoft. I am really irked about the feature of not being able to move files from one folder to another.once you have fixed a folder you are done you cannot move that folder into another or move a file from one to another.
But for this highly annoying feature This is a great uploading site.
Now I have a question for you guys. How safe is it for u to put sensitive documents on this site e.g. marks cards,birth certificates… Since thats holding me back. Ok I agree the password is very important but even then i still don’t have faith in online storage till additional security features come in. comments….
I tried to start an account twice using Firefox; both times failed. So I opened IE, got logged in, then had to change my IE security settings to get it to work.
But it will only let me use the ‘one at a time’ uploader, even though I tried setting up the multi-installer tool. Instead of undoing who-knows-what security thingees I put on my pc in the past, I just made a 7zip archive of a set of family photos so I could upload everything at once. I’m guessing this storage system uses a lot of ActiveX; I really look forward to the review of other storage systems coming out. Hopefully they won’t require IE/ActiveX.
@Sherri
Not sure what’s going on there. I signed up initially with Firefox and have since went back in using Firefox under both Windows 2000 and XP without any problems. Today I added 5 files at once to a folder without any problems too.
Perhaps one of your extensions or configuration is conflicting.
@Travis
Well, now that I’ve started an account (through IE lol), FF is working. Before trying it with FF again, I turned off my NoScript addon, but after I found it was working with FF, I turned NoScript back on and allowed the LIVE site, and it still worked. So I’m not sure why it wasn’t working with FF earlier. It seems it was some temporary glitch on my end.
I even uploaded a few things successfully to test it. I did notice that they don’t offer an ‘multi-uploader tool’ while using FF, like they did with IE.
Thanks!
Hello !
is there any way to move or copy files from one folder to other in SKYDRIVE ???
I do not believe this
Hey, is it possible to transfer files from one skydrive to another..?
I mean i have two hotmail accounts. Is it possible to transfer my data from one skydrive to another..?
Thanks..