I have lost count of the number of times I have seen end users attempt to send huge attachments in an email. For those of you who administer mail servers, I’m certain you’ve had your fair share of debates with users/managers about why it’s not a good idea to increase attachment limits.
I’m going to show you how you can use SkyDrive to share large documents/files with others.
If you have an Outlook.com account (formerly Hotmail), we can proceed. If you don’t have an account, it’s very easy and free, to sign up for one. Just visit Outlook.com and click on “Sign up now” 🙂
All right, let’s get on with it.
[box type=”shadow”]Go to http://skydrive.live.com[/box]
[box type=”shadow”]Sign in with your account (***@outlook.com or ***@hotmail.com).
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You can use the default folders (Documents, Pictures, Public) or create your own. For this post, I’m going to use the “Documents” folder.
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Now, I’m going to upload my document/file into this folder. You can do it one of two ways: drag & drop it in or using the “Upload” feature. For this post, I’ll just use the upload option. When you click upload, you will be given the option to browse to where the file is located on your computer. Once there, you can select the file or press the Ctrl key and select multiple files for upload.
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When the file starts to upload, you will see a window like this.
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Once the upload has completed, the file you selected will be listed in the “Documents” folder. In this case, the file name is TestDocument.
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To share this document, you have to first select it. Move your mouse over the file and you will see a box appear with a checkbox on the top right corner. Click the checkbox to select the document. When you do, a few options appear on the menu bar.
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Now click “Sharing” and you’ll get this window.
SkyDrive gives us a few options here. I can email a link to the file straight from this account, but you’ll also notice the “Recipients can edit” (allow the recipients to edit the document) and “Require everyone who accessed this to sign in” (restrict access) options. Please note that your recipient will have to have a free Microsoft account to access the file, if you check the “Require everyone who accessed this to sign in” option. I won’t use this option, but will show you how to get a link to this document that you can send with your regular email account.
You can also directly share a link on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, if you choose to do so.
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Click “Get a link” to get this window.
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Click “Create” under “View only”. If you want the recipients to be able to edit as well, use the create option under “View and edit”. If you want to make the link available to everyone, you would click “Make public”.
When you click create under view only, you will first get a long link. Clicking the “Shorten” button will give you a shorter link you. You can easily click “Remove permissions” to stop sharing the file.
Long Link
Short Link
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Now, all you have to do is copy that short link and send it to whoever you wanted to share the file with. That’s all there is to it 🙂
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I hope this has been of help to you.
Thanks for reading.
Thank Sri 🙂