Good news: Microsoft are making it easier to share files using their online OneDrive service.
If you need to send a small photo by email it isn’t a problem. Most email providers will accept attachments up to 30MB in size. However, problems strike when you need to send a bigger picture, such as a high resolution image, or a video or other large file.
If the size of the file you need to send exceeds the attachment size allowed by your email provider, the message will fail completely. The other annoying thing is that even if your message sends, the attachment may be too big for your email recipient’s mail provider.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get an error message back but, if your unlucky, the attachment will be stripped from the message (leaving your recipient scratching their head, wondering what picture you are talking about), or the message will simply disappear.
In short, if you need to transfer large files to friends, email is a bad option. Fortunately, OneDrive can step in and help. You just need to save your file to OneDrive, then share it with your recipient. OneDrive will send an email to the person, containing a link that they can then click on to access the large file. OneDrive has always had the ability for you to select a file on your OneDrive account and choose to share it with other people. Previously, the process was complicated but now Microsoft have decided to simplify it.
This simplification means it is even easier to share your files using OneDrive. Now, you simply click on
Share, then select Get a link (to receive a link to your file that you can then paste into a message), or
Email (in order to automatically send an email to your recipient containing a link to the file). To find out how it works, read my tip below.