Today during an exclusive online event, Microsoft announced some of the incoming changes to OneDrive service on Windows 11, the web, and across the rest of Microsoft 365. The company detailed what it's calling "the third generation of OneDrive," and highlighted that its new Copilot experience will also be coming to OneDrive. The Redmond firm also revealed some new design features for the web-based experience of service, like colored folders. If you're wondering, some of these features are now available for testing, if you sign in with a business account on OneDrive.
The refreshed OneDrive Home experience
The highlight of this event is almost certainly the refreshed OneDrive Home experience. Microsoft says that this new OneDrive Home experience is designed for you to find, access, and work with all your files faster than ever, and in more personal ways. The new OneDrive Home is built on Microsoft's new Fluent Design language seen in Windows 11, helping you put files and folders center stage. The company reduced the number of containers and revamped the typography to improve legibility.
Other than the visual redesign, Microsoft's new OneDrive Home is designed for you to easily find and access files across OneDrive. There are AI-powered recommendations in a new "For You Section", which will have new options for you to get back to the files right from your home page. You'll also be able to filter the list using new buttons for PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and more.
Some of the other tweaks in OneDrive Home include a new Add New button, which will help you create files from templates across all kinds of Microsoft 365 apps. You'll even be able to choose the colors in folders you create, to help you stay organized. And, when you share a folder, the color choice will be reflected with those you share it.
Beyond that, Microsoft even updated the Shared view, so you have access to all the files, regardless of how it was shared, with new filters, and new options to favorite the file regardless of content type. With that favorite view, you can get back to your files more easily from the sidebar, and you even can create a shortcut to a file, too, so you can add it to a link to any folder in OneDrive.
A new People view, which shows files from those whom you are working with, and a meeting view, to show you files from your meetings, cap out the list of changes in OneDrive Home.
Finally, coming soon to OneDrive Home will also be a media view, to access photo and video assets from one place. You'll even be able to access OneDrive directly from Teams and get this same new For You view later this December. And in OneDrive for Outlook? Microsoft will add the OneDrive app in the left navigation of the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook for the web, so you don't have to leave the app.
Copilot and AI features in OneDrive
The other big news from this event? It's OneDrive in Copilot. This experience isn't yet available for testing, but there are a few things Microsoft has coming for it. You'll be able to use natural language in the search box to find files shared by a specific person during a specific time. You'll also be able to avoid opening a document to see if it is related to your search, and simply ask Copilot to highlight the takeaways.
Copilot will even be able to suggest next steps like adding to a folder and suggest people to you to share the file with and give you a daily digest of updates in OneDrive you might have missed. Microsoft said these features are "a little bit further off" and mentioned Copilot in OneDrive is expected to become available by December for all customers who have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
There are also some other AI-powered features Microsoft mentioned, particularly for consumers. In the first, you'll be able to identify and add people to your OneDrive, and manually add names to faces. In the second, you'll be able to type what you are looking in the search bar for and have OneDrive find it, using your natural language. These two features are rolling out today in preview.
Some other features for OneDrive announced during this event include the option for those who work with OneDrive in Teams and Sharepoint to open files from OneDrive web in a desktop application of their choice. Microsoft is also planning to roll out Offline mode, so you can open and work with files in your browser when offline. This should be coming in 2024.