Microsoft is celebrating the 15th anniversary of OneDrive with a new landing page and a few productivity-focused features.
The new features are not live, as yet, though Microsoft suggests they will be available "in the coming months".
Once they are live, users will land on a new home page that almost resembles the dashboard of the online version of Office. This will replace the My files tab which is usually the first port of call for OneDrive.
The home page will still contain a list of files, organised by the most recently opened by default, and there will still be a list of filters at the top that allows users to sort documents by Word, Excel, PowerPoint and so on.
This is one of the biggest design changes to OneDrive, since its release in 2007. The cloud-based storage service has become one of the most important elements of the Microsoft 365 suite though it doesn't seem to have as much investment as Teams or other Microsoft apps.
Aside from a new look, OneDrive is also getting some new tools. The first of which is an 'Activity' column just to the right of the 'Owner' file field which notifies users when someone leaves a comment or '@' mentions. There will also be a new Quick access section on the left side of the Home view. This can be used to find and pin frequently used accessed spaces.
From the first impression, it appears that the new home page is being positioned as a central hub to help users stay organised. Which is a trend within business software providers to make their services more streamlined and ultimately more complete, particularly for hybrid workers.
There is also an update for the mobile version of OneDrive, with a new photo story feature. This is basically another attempt to get Instagram-style 'stories' in another Microsoft product - it was very short-lived on LinkedIn.
