Microsoft SkyDrive & Photo Storage Upgrades
ByWho isn’t looking for places on-line to store data, pictures, videos, etc. Sometimes you need to access documents from another location. Perhaps you want a place to store and share your pictures, videos or work files. Kodak Picture Gallery just announced they were going to start charging for their picture storage. Free is starting to wane with some sites, but not Microsoft.
Here, we’ll talk about Microsoft offering 25GB of free cloud storage and the enhancements they’ve made to this free service as well as their improved picture storage/sharing/viewing services. I have a Windows Live Home account and a Small Business Live Account with Microsoft and it’s amazing how they’ve upgraded their free services and offerings over the last year.
Sky Drive- 25GB of Free Cloud Storage
Microsoft recently mega-boosted their storage limit from 500MB to 25 GB of free storage space. I was excited about that and had plans to move quite a few folders to the clouds for back-up and remote access. I quickly gave up because it was a very slow one-file-at-a-time-process. I didn’t have the time or patience for that. Wa-la – now you can upload multiple files in one of two ways: 
- Drag and drop files from windows explorer
- Select files from your computer – then the familiar box will pop up where you can navigate to the folder containing files. Simply select one, some, or all of the files.
When finished click on the ‘upload now’ button and they are uploaded. My uploads were very fast.
When you’ve finished, make sure you apply the correct viewing permissions to all your folders. They will be public by default and you probably don’t want that. You can choose to share with your network, contacts or just yourself. At a glance, you’ll see by the type of icon on each folder the type of permission it has. You can share a folder by clicking the ‘send a link’ button and enter in an email address. You can click the ‘do not require a Windows Live ID’ in order to share the folder. This is new as Microsoft previously made everyone using its service sign up. You can also choose to download files as a .zip file for large files.
Office Live Photo Gallery and on-line Photo Storage
Uploading, viewing and sharing photos on-line has never been easier. I blogged about Windows Live Photo Gallery earlier this year. I’ve got duplicate folders of nearly all my pictures on my Live Account in the clouds. The permissions and sharing features work exactly the same for photos as for document folders.
What’s new is the improved slideshow feature. Now, you can view your pictures nearly filling the screen with background colors that change to match the photos! Beautiful.
Conclusion
The multiple file upload has really sold me and I’ll be getting more of my documents safely stored on-line. I do two other backups (Carbonite & external hard drive), but it’s nice to have multiple systems and easy access to documents and pictures. Enjoy.
You might enjoy checking out this article from ExtremeTech that discusses 6 other storage services – some with interesting features.
Pleased to find this as your comments are very helpful. Re: Microsoft SkyDrive. When setting up initially, can one upload folders? Or must one create folders and then upload files? Thanks for your response….
Thanks for stopping by. I don't believe you can upload folders, but multiple files can be selected at one time and uploaded. I think they are working on this piece of functionality.
This an Excellent post, I will bookmark this in my Newsvine account. Have a awesome day.
Articles like thi shave no date. I can't find the ability to upload multiple files right now, it is April 17 2012. I have skydrive opn now and nothing like the screenshot shown above.
The comments below seem to be two years old.
DATE PLEASE ON ALL ARTICLES