Create, share, and manage OneDrive files and folders

Trust us, it's worth investing a few minutes to review this guide, especially if you're less familiar with OneDrive.

Contents

• What is OneDrive?
• How to access your OneDrive
• Create a new OneDrive file
• Sharing OneDrive files with other people
• Managing access to your OneDrive files
• Other user can't move files to a different folder

What is OneDrive?

See The Ultimate Quick Guide on using OneDrive and Teams

How to access your OneDrive

See How to access OneDrive

Create a new OneDrive file

1. Choose New and then select the type of file you want. In this example, we will create a new Excel workbook: 
   
   
   
2. Your work will be automatically saved as you type. To change the name of the file, click on the ‘Book’ text near the top of the page. A pop-up window will appear where you can adjust the file name of the document, as well as its location:

Sharing OneDrive files with other people

Just like Dropbox or Google Drive, you can give other people access to files and folders within your personal OneDrive file storage solution.

There are many ways to share files and manage access. We'll go over how to share via web browser to get you started. 

If you're editing a document within a web browser, choose Share at the top right. A pop-up window will appear where you can enter the email addresses of the people you want to share with. You will also be able to select the type of access for those people (read-only, review/suggest, and edit).

Once all your selections are finalized, you can then either send an access link via email directly from that window, or you can simply copy the link. Please note that that link will be specific to the people you just selected to share the file with.

Similarly, if you are browsing your OneDrive files, you can simply right-click on the file you want to share, then select Share from the context menu that appears. The same window and options described above will appear. 

Notes:

• Due to your organization's security policies, sharing files with people outside your organization may not be available. If you are unable to share files with people outside your org, please open a Help Desk ticket and include your business need.
• Depending on your organization's data privacy and security policies, you may not have the option to share links with "anyone" - instead, you will be able to share links with specific people (including third parties) or with people within your organization. This allows you to better manage and control exactly who has access to your files.
• It's easier to manage sharing permissions if you share a folder with others, rather than individual files. For example, let's say you need to share files with staff from Company 1. In that case, you can create a folder called "Shared with Company 1", share that folder with staff from that company, and then save any shared files within that shared folder. Once you no longer want to share the files with those staff members, simply remove their access from the main folder (see the next section for reference). 

Managing access to your OneDrive files

With OneDrive, you control who has permission to open your file links and you can rescind access at any time.

How to view who has access to your folders/files:

Navigate to the file or folder you want to share:

1. Right-click on the desired item, then select Manage access.
   
   
   
2. A window will pop up and display who has access to the item, as well as what type of access they have. In the example below, we can see that three people outside my organization have View-only access to this file. 
   

Note: If you need to find the sharing link, you can click the Links tab, shown in the screenshot above, and you'll see something like this:

You can see in this example that there is a link specifically for Edit access, and a separate link specifically for View access. When managing your data privacy, it's important to note the distinction between the View and Edit links. 

How to revoke access to your folders/files:

Let's say you want to rescind all access to a file or folder:

1. When you are viewing who has access, click the Stop sharing button at the top right of that pop up window.
   
   
   
2. Then another pop up will ask you to confirm if you want to stop sharing.
   

But now let's say that you have shared the item with multiple people and you only want to rescind one person's access. In that case:

1. When you are viewing who has access, click on the name of the person from whom you want to rescind access.
2. Click "Specific people with this link" to expand your options, then click the Gear icon on the right.
   
   
   
3. Now you can click the X next to their name to remove just that person's access. It will then prompt you to confirm the change.
   

Other user can't move files to a different folder

If you want other users to be able to move files between folders located within your OneDrive, you'll need to grant them access to a root folder that contains those sub-folders. 

Let's take this folder structure for example:

• Root folder 1
• Root folder 2
• Root folder 3
  • Sub Folder A
    • Sub Folder X
    • Sub Folder Y
    • Sub Folder Z
  • Sub Folder B

Let's say you want to grant Nathan access to move files between Sub Folder X and Sub Folder Y. You will need to grant Nathan access to the most root folder containing those sub folders. So it won't work if you simply grant him access to Sub Folder A. Instead, you'll need to grant Nathan access to Root folder 3.

It's important to note that this will give Nathan access to the entirety of Root folder 3 and it's sub-folders and files. A good practice would be to create a root folder called something like "Shared" so you can easily distinguish that it and anything within it will be shared. 

---

Related:

• Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive: What's the difference?