Onedrive Office 365 Install Separate OneDrive

A couple of years ago, my company standardized on Office 365.

But Microsofts cloud-managed service didnt really work on Macs or mobile devices, and about half the people at the company use an OS other than Windows.

Although pretty much everyone works with Office apps and most people use Outlook even on a Mac, no one really opts for the OneDrive cloud storage service.

Apples and Googles mail, calendar, and contacts clients are darned good, so the awkward OWA app didnt stand much of a chance of adoption, especially given the pathetic state of the initial version.

About the only task requiring OWA use is booking a meeting room.

The new Outlook app for iOS cant do that, either.) Still, we all happily use the Exchange back end, regardless of the client that works best on our platforms.

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Not so with cloud storage -- because there wasnt a OneDrive for Buiness client for OS X, Mac users couldnt use our corporate OneDrive storage.

There was and still is a personal OneDrive client, but it cant access corporate files.) Many of us literally could not use the corporate OneDrive for work, even if we wanted to.

The iOS and Android versions of OneDrive for Business have only basic functionality, so users also avoid it on all devices.

The truth is that OneDrive for Business is hard to use in Windows, too, especially if you have a regular OneDrive account set up.

Instead, most folks juggle a combination of Google Drive (mainly for access via Web browsers to shared resources in Google Apps, not so much for raw storage) and Dropbox or Box, both of which support any platform youre likely to use and dont have all the setup and usage difficulties of OneDrive.

I was quite interested in the beta version of OneDrive for OS X that Microsoft released last Wednesday.

I also was intrigued by the unified OneDrive for iOS that Microsoft released that day; it follows in the footsteps of what Microsoft has offered for several months to Android and Windows Phone users.

Onedrive Office 365 Install Separate OneDrive

Until this week, you needed to install separate OneDrive and OneDrive for Business apps on an iPhone or iPad.).

Its shocking that it took this long to get OneDrive for Business out as an OS X beta.

But at least its here, and maybe the real thing will ship soon.

The good news is that OneDrive for Business works like OneDrive: You get a virtual drive in the Finder so that you and your apps can access OneDrive for Business files normally.

That means that Office for Mac can now access files in your corporate OneDrive for Business account -- which should have always worked.

OneDrive for Business for Mac, in its January 2015 beta, provides simple access to your corporate documents via a virtual hard drive.

But there are no bells and whistles on the Mac version of OneDrive for Business, as there are none in personal OneDrive.

All you get is that virtual drive -- no sharing capabilities as Box or Dropbox provide.

Even iCloud offers more sharing than OneDrive, though you have to do so from within the apps, not from the Finder as Box and Dropbox allow.

Also, I wish Microsoft used a slightly different icon for the menu bar for OneDrive for Business than it does for OneDrive.

Theyre the same, so youre likely to pick the wrong one when accessing settings.

The good news is that the menu bar apps do very little, so you wont open them very often.

Onedrive For Mac Office 365