Inside SkyDrive

New SkyDrive photo timeline and uploads 2x faster

Omar Shahine — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

People put a lot of their stuff in SkyDrive, but photos are the most common file type we see in SkyDrive, both in sheer number and in total storage consumed.

All photos view

Starting today and rolling out over the next 48 hours, we're making it easier for you to see all of your photos in SkyDrive across all your albums and folders based on a timeline view.

In the timeline view you can scroll down to navigate through all the images. They're organized into groups by event and time. Take 20 pictures at a birthday party with your phone, and then a photo of your parking spot at the airport a few hours later? Now they'll appear as two different groups in the timeline.

The new view is convenient when you want to quickly get to a photo from June and you only have access to a web browser. Maybe the reason you only have access to a web browser is because your laptop was accidentally destroyed by a random camping accident.

We also think this view is particularly excellent for your camera roll folder, since that can contain thousands of photos taken over many years (at least in my case).

If you want to quickly navigate to a specific month, just click the month name.

You can also view all your photos in the filmstrip view, and then watch them in a slide show.

Improved performance uploading photos via the SkyDrive desktop app

In the past few months we’ve also been hard at work addressing the feedback we’ve received about how long it sometimes takes to upload via the SkyDrive desktop app. To improve upload times, we worked on changes to both the app and the server code. The end result is that in our internal tests, we’ve seen a 2-3x improvement in upload times for photos.

Windows Phone full-resolution camera upload comes to all markets

We're also excited to share the news that we now have full resolution uploads of photos and videos in all markets where Windows Phone 8 is available. Now everyone with a Windows Phone 8 can have a complete backup of all the photos they take in their SkyDrive camera roll.

New layout for thumbnails and now PowerPoint and Word docs get thumbnails, too

Thumbnails make it easier to find the file you're looking for, and so we're also introducing some changes to our thumbnails view. We worked hard to improve the readability of the files and folders you have in SkyDrive and are introducing new thumbnails for your PowerPoint and Word files.

We hope this saves you time finding the stuff you need. Check it out and lets us know what you think.

Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com

Over 250M people using SkyDrive

Omar Shahine — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

It’s been a very busy year for SkyDrive and we’d like to thank all of you for helping us improve the service through your feedback, tweets, Facebook posts, and comments. The service continues to grow: since October 2012 when Windows 8 launched, 50 million more people have started using SkyDrive, helping us reach an important milestone – over 250 million people are now using SkyDrive as the new place to save their files.

In just the past few months we’ve made SkyDrive the default save location for the new Office, updated the SkyDrive app for iOS, and made substantial performance improvements to SkyDrive uploading. Recently, we also announced that Microsoft accounts have grown to 700 million, that we’ve improved the security of our service with things like two-step verification, and that we now have Extended Validation Certificates integrated on SkyDrive.com. And a few days ago, our friends over at Outlook.com announced that they're rolling out a new feature that allows you to insert anything from your SkyDrive directly into an email message. We continue to push forward to a world where all your stuff is in SkyDrive, so you can always have it with you.

We’ve put together an infographic to highlight this milestone.

Thank you to the first 250 million, and onwards to a billion! We look forward to bringing you even more awesome features in the future.

Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com
Mike Torres, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive apps

Editor's note: We updated the above image after publication.

Update to SkyDrive app for iOS

Mike Torres — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:00:00 GMT

We aim to make SkyDrive the place for all your documents, notes, photos, videos and other files. With the release of Windows 8 and Windows RT back in October, more and more people every day are using SkyDrive for their most important files through the SkyDrive app, as well as through SkyDrive integration in File Explorer. Of course, there are great SkyDrive experiences for Windows devices, but being the place for all your files means we invest a significant amount of effort ensuring you have a great experience across all the devices you want to use.

Today, we’re excited to release v3.0 of the SkyDrive app for iOS that includes improved photo features, an updated UI, and a number of other new features and enhancements. You can install or update the SkyDrive app for iOS now via iTunes.

Here are the updates we’ve made to v3.0 of the SkyDrive app for iOS:

Support for iPhone 5 and iPad Mini
Updated app icons and user experience
Works better with your photos:

Download full resolution photos to your iPhone or iPad
Control the size of photos you upload and download
Photo metadata is retained when you upload to SkyDrive

Opening and saving files to SkyDrive works better with other apps on your iOS devices
Many other small changes, bug fixes and performance improvements

Install or update the SkyDrive app now via iTunes. As always, we hope you enjoy these updates and we look forward to hearing what you think.

Mike Torres, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive apps

A billion Office documents on SkyDrive, now with easier collaboration

Omar Shahine — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Last week Office 365 Home Premium launched and we’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm over the seamless integration of SkyDrive for saving and sharing your docs. Recently we reached a big milestone; our customers are now storing over a billion Office documents on SkyDrive! We’re really excited about the feedback we’ve seen around the new version of Office and the deep integration of SkyDrive. We’re taking it a step further today by announcing a new feature in SkyDrive and the Office Web Apps that allows a more seamless sharing and editing experience for our customers.
This post was written by Sarah Filman, a Lead Program Manager on SkyDrive who helped bring this new editing feature to SkyDrive.
– Omar Shahine

For those of you who have tried the new Office, you’ll know we made it easy to quickly save your documents to SkyDrive and get a link to share with others—earlier today we made it even easier for people to share and edit documents in the Office Web Apps by not requiring them to sign in with their Microsoft account.

With an edit link, all recipients can edit your document—even at the same time. One piece of feedback we’ve consistently heard, especially from students, is that our current SkyDrive edit links can be frustrating for recipients when they find that they need to sign in or sign up for a Microsoft account just to make a quick edit to the document.

Recipients can now go from clicking your link to editing in a snap AND you can share with confidence that they will definitely be able to view and edit your document.

With edit links, all people who receive your link will be able to edit the document. If you'd like more control over exactly who can access your document, we recommend inviting specific people via their email addresses and checking the "Require user to sign-in" check box.

We hope that these changes will help make sharing and collaborating with others a quicker and more seamless experience. Happy sharing!

Sarah Filman

Lead Program Manager SkyDrive.com

SkyDrive app adds live tiles to keep you up-to-date

Mike Torres — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:45:00 GMT

Since we released the SkyDrive app for Windows and Windows RT back in October, it has been great to see all the ways people are using it. People are accessing, viewing, and sharing files that they’ve stored on SkyDrive, as well as saving files directly to SkyDrive from other apps. Today, we’re excited to announce changes to how you’ll see SkyDrive from your Start screen.

Starting today, the SkyDrive app from the Windows Store will start showing you notifications on the live tile when you add new files to your SkyDrive. Now the tile for the SkyDrive app will be useful for more than just launching the app, by providing at-a-glance info on what’s going on in your SkyDrive. Whenever you add new files to SkyDrive, the app tile shows you relevant details. If you add a document, you’ll see the document name, along with when it was added, and what folder it’s in. If you add photos, the tile gives you a nice view of those photos.

We think you’ll find that the new live tile info enhances your Start screen and makes it feel even more alive and personal to you.

This new feature will be rolling out throughout the day, so if you don’t see any new info on your SkyDrive tile just yet, sit tight, you’ll see it very soon!

Improved sharing & new HTML5 features for SkyDrive.com

Omar Shahine — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:02:03 GMT

We’re ringing in the new year with a few improvements to SkyDrive.com. You now have a single, unified view into how each of your files is shared so you can more easily control who has access to your files. We’ve also added more HTML5 features for touch devices making the SkyDrive experience faster and more fluid across devices and we’ve introduced more drag-and-drop capabilities to make it easier to manage your files, photos and documents.

Integrated view of sharing permissions

SkyDrive offers a number of different ways to share your files—email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or simply generating a link to send to whoever you want. As more and more SkyDrive files are being shared, people are often using more than one of these at a time. To make this easier, we’ve unified all sharing-related info and tasks into a single screen. So now when you select a document and click Share in the command bar, you’ll see all the different ways to share the item as well as who has access.

For instance, in the above picture, you can see that my Top Restaurants document is shared to 2 people and I’ve created a view link.

And when I select one of those (for example Chris Jones in the image below), I can then change the kind of access to my document (view only or edit) and also remove permissions.

And of course, you can also share the file with more people by selecting one of the share options.

Improved selection for touch-based devices

If you’re using touch to interact with SkyDrive.com, you can now select an item or multiple items by swiping on the item to the left or right—similar to interactions on a new Windows 8 PC.

In the screen shot below, I’ve simply tapped the item to select it.

Repeating the touch gesture will un-select it.

Improved drag-and-drop support

In addition to being able to drag and drop files into your SkyDrive, you can now move files to anywhere in the hierarchy of your SkyDrive by using the bread crumb bar as the target. As you can see below, I’m moving a PDF in my Scans folder one level up to the Documents folder.

Finally, we’re also releasing a number of improvements under the hood which won’t be visible to you, but are designed to make SkyDrive.com even faster and more reliable. All of these features are releasing today and should be available in your SkyDrive soon.

Omar Shahine
Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com

Update on Windows Live Mesh

David Kornfield — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Windows Live Mesh was first released in beta back in late 2008 and was used to keep files in sync and to remotely access a PC. A lot has changed since 2008—the cloud has become far more ubiquitous and capable of storing larger and larger amounts of data, usage of always-connected mobile devices with minimal on-board storage (smartphones & tablets) has sky-rocketed, and TVs are now connected to the cloud through devices like Xbox 360.

As we’ve discussed in the past, we’ve been working to bring the DNA of Windows Live Mesh together with SkyDrive into a single service, set of apps and developer APIs. So we’ve been making big moves with SkyDrive—taking it from a single website (SkyDrive.com) a year ago, to the world’s most available and versatile cloud storage service with a new HTML5 website and apps for Windows, Windows Phone, Android, iPhone, iPad, and now Xbox 360. And with Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, the new Office and tons of other apps and websites that build on the SkyDrive APIs, your SkyDrive is now deeply integrated into devices and apps in a way that makes saving to the cloud, or using your cloud files, simple and seamless.

With the significant investments in bringing the DNA of Mesh together with SkyDrive, there are now over 200 million people that have used SkyDrive, and more and more are making the move every day. So while Windows Live Mesh was at one point used by a few million people, most have made the move and there are now less than 25,000 active users of Windows Live Mesh.

As a result, we’re announcing today that Windows Live Mesh will be officially retired on February 13, 2013, and we’re starting to communicate with the remaining Mesh users and provide a set of instructions on how to keep their files in sync and alternative options for some of the features they’re still using.

Getting started with SkyDrive

To save your files to SkyDrive, install SkyDrive on your computers and mobile devices. Then, just drag files or folders from your Mesh folders into the SkyDrive folder and they’ll automatically start to sync to the cloud (SkyDrive.com) and to other PCs or Macs where you’ve installed a SkyDrive sync app.

SkyDrive looks and feels and little different than Mesh, but it’s similar in many ways. Here’s how to perform three common Mesh tasks in SkyDrive:

Windows Live Mesh task	How to do it using SkyDrive
Automatically sync files across PCs, Macs, and the cloud	Drag any file (up to 2 GB) or folder into your SkyDrive folder to sync with the cloud and other PCs or Macs. You get 7 GB of free storage and can buy up to 100 GB more.
Access files on a PC when you’re away	Fetch files on any PC running Windows where you’ve installed the SkyDrive desktop app. You can do this from SkyDrive.com
Share folders with others	Use SkyDrive.com or the desktop apps to share any file or folder in your SkyDrive. People you share with can access files you share using any browser or device.

Remote desktop

If you don’t just want remote access to your files, but want a full remote desktop experience where you can access files and apps after Mesh is retired, we recommend the following alternatives:

Remote Desktop Connection
Already built into Windows PCs, Remote Desktop Connection offers the same functionality that Mesh offered and is compatible with the following operating systems:
- Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise
- Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate
- Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Enterprise
- Windows XP Professional
LogMeIn Pro
LogMeIn Pro lets you access your computers (PC and Mac) remotely through the web in HD. You can transfer files, print remotely, or keep computers up to date from any device.
LogMeIn supports the following operating systems:
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
- Mac OS 10.4 through Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

For additional support, please visit the SkyDrive forums in the Microsoft Community.

Thank you

Finally, we wanted to say thank you to everyone that used Windows Live Mesh and gave us feedback along the way. You’ve been a great help in how we brought Mesh and SkyDrive together, and we look forward to continuing to hear from you as we build the world’s most versatile cloud storage service for you—SkyDrive.

David Kornfield

Product Marketer

SkyDrive comes to Xbox 360: Your photos and videos on the TV

Mike Torres — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:01:00 GMT

Last month, we announced that SkyDrive usage had doubled in the last 6 months, building on the general availability of Windows 8. With the growth of Windows 8, we’re seeing more and more people choose SkyDrive as the easiest way to store and share their photos, documents, and other files.
Starting today, we’re bringing even more value to SkyDrive and Xbox customers with a new SkyDrive app for Xbox 360. This means your favorite content is now only one click away, whether you are using the web, your PC, your phone, or now, even your big screen TV.
Dan Somrack, one of our newest Program Managers, authored this post. Dan just joined us from Cornell University earlier this year and he drove the final release details of this project.
The app will be going live later today. You can expect to see it on your Xbox after 10AM PST.
- Mike Torres, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive apps

Interested in seeing what SkyDrive on Xbox can do? Check out this video that gives a quick peek at what the new SkyDrive app on Xbox 360 makes possible:

The entirely new SkyDrive experience for Xbox 360 spotlights your photos and videos. The app connects the cloud to your Xbox and TV: every photo, video, movie, and other file you put in SkyDrive from Windows or the web will be available on your Xbox-connected TV. Your Windows Phone is also now connected to Xbox and every photo you snap can be available on your TV automatically.

When we thought about all of the possibilities of introducing SkyDrive to the Xbox 360 environment, there were lots of features we could have tied together but we wanted to focus on the scenarios that people have told us they would find most valuable. So in building a SkyDrive experience for the living room, we’ve spent our time on making these three primary scenarios feel great:

Shared photos & videos. Share a meaningful event with your friends or family by viewing photos & videos on your TV, or view photos & videos others have shared with you through SkyDrive. Imagine being able to view cherished photos and videos shared by friends and family —like a musical performance, a kid’s birthday, or baby’s first steps—on your TV.
Snap and see. For Windows Phone users, snap a picture and see it appear almost immediately in your camera roll on the big screen. This feels like magic! For example, you could take a quick snapshot of your child making a funny face, fire up the SkyDrive app on your Xbox, and view it right away on your 50” screen. Just make sure you’re using the same Microsoft account sign-in for both Xbox LIVE and your Windows Phone.
Party slide show. Plan a great slide show to play in the background of a dinner party. For example, you could start a slide show of a recent trip for friends, or have holiday-themed photos and videos playing during a holiday party.

Plus, the SkyDrive app for Xbox supports Kinect voice controls and gestures as well as remote and controller input. Yes, this means you can view a slide show of your SkyDrive photos just by talking to your Xbox… which is very, very cool. (Kinect voice controls are not available in all languages.)

Get started now

Here's how to get up and running with the SkyDrive app on your Xbox:

Turn on your TV and your Xbox.
Go to Apps, and then select Browse Apps.
In the Social category, select SkyDrive.

We hope you love this app as much as we do, and enjoy using it the next time you have friends or family over. As always, we’re excited to see how you use it, and we’re looking ahead to bringing you more SkyDrive coolness in the future.

Dan Somrack
Program Manager, SkyDrive

Announcing new .NET and Windows Phone SDKs for SkyDrive, plus IFTTT, DocuSign and SoundGecko integrations

Omar Shahine — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:20:00 GMT

Just under a year ago, we unveiled a set of SkyDrive APIs that made it easy for developers on modern mobile platforms to provide their users with the ability to access their SkyDrive content in their favorite apps. And since then, we’ve been working at how we could continue to make this easy for more and more developers – so we added client-side SDKs targeting Windows 8, Windows Phone, JavaScript Web library, iOS and Android as well as made several enhancement to our REST APIs by removing file extension restrictions and also letting you upload full resolution pictures. Today, we are excited to announce the availability of new SDKs for .NET and Windows Phone 8 that are available at http://dev.live.com/.

We also continue to be impressed by the broad range of ways in which developers building apps of all kinds are using the SkyDrive APIs to build great experiences for their users. We have an app showcasethat features a number of apps that we think represent particularly effective integrations. Here, we wanted to highlight some new additions that we find compelling—IFTTT, DocuSign and SoundGecko.

IFTTT

IFTTT("If this, then that") allows users to put the Internet to work for them by creating customizable recipes to bring together the power of numerous web services, such as Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, Tumblr, and more. Users set rules by defining triggers and matching them with actions to automate activities they want. By activating the SkyDrive channel, users can save files from other services to SkyDrive in a multitude of ways. For example, you could setup a recipe that automatically saves all of your Instagram photos to your SkyDrive.

DocuSign

Safe, secure and legally binding, DocuSign empowers users to get signatures from anyone, finish tasks faster, and go completely paperless. Users can send documents they have saved on SkyDrive, other cloud storage services, and their local hard drives. Once a document is sent, users can set automatic reminders for recipients to encourage them to complete it.

SoundGecko

SoundGecko is a text-to-audio transcribing service that lets you enjoy written content from around the web on the go. When users link SoundGecko with SkyDrive, they get their MP3 audio transcriptions automatically uploaded to a "SoundGecko" folder in their SkyDrive account, available everywhere they go.

An evolving platform with even more tools

As the SkyDrive platform evolves, you can now use one of the new SDKs we’re releasing for building apps.

New SDKs

We are happy to announce the release of .NET and Windows Phone 8 SDKs for SkyDrive. Since we first introduced our SDKs, we have seen a lot of developers ask for a .NET library that would work for both client desktop apps and ASP.NET applications. With this release you can now create applications that target traditional desktop scenarios and as well as server side scenarios.

.NET SDK

Client version

With this release you will be able to create WPF, Windows Form or console applications that let your users use their SkyDrive data. The possibilities are endless and we are really excited to see the type of applications you can create.

Server version

We are also releasing a version of the .NET SDK that will let you create ASP.NET websites and even web server components that talk to SkyDrive. Using the SDK also makes it easier for you to incorporate Microsoft account into your identity system or even just use Microsoft account as your primary identity system. Be sure to check out our Build talk “Powering your apps with Microsoft accounts” below to learn more about it. For those who are eager to dive in, here’s a little overview of the details of our .NET SDK. The following code shows how to retrieve your user’s SkyDrive data from a server .NET application:

public async Task<ActionResult> Index()
        {
            this.authClient = new LiveAuthClient(ClientId, ClientSecret, null);

           try
            {
  var scopes = new string[] { "wl.signin", "wl.basic", "wl.skydrive" };
                LiveLoginResult loginStatus = await this.authClient.InitializeWebSessionAsync(this.HttpContext, this.CurrentPath, scopes);
                if (loginStatus.Status == LiveConnectSessionStatus.Connected)
                {
                    return await GetSkyDriveView();
                }
                else {
                    
                    string reAuthUrl = this.GetLoginUrl(scopes, this.CurrentPath);
                    this.Response.Redirect(reAuthUrl);
                    return null;
                }
            }
            catch (LiveAuthException ex)
            {   
                return HanldeAuthError(ex);
            }
        }

        private async Task<ActionResult> GetSkyDriveView ()
        {
            LiveConnectClient client = new LiveConnectClient(this.authClient.Session);
           try
            {
                LiveOperationResult skydriveResult  = await client.GetAsync("me/skydrive/files");
                SkyDriveDataModel skydriveFilesModel = GetSkyDriveDataModel(skydriveResult);
                return View("MySkyDriveView", skydriveFilesModel);
            }
            catch(LiveConnectException ex)
            {
                return HanldeUserDataError(ex);
            }
        }

Windows Phone 8 SDK

There are a ton of Windows Phone applications that already leverage SkyDrive in their applications. Today, we are proud to announce the support for Windows Phone 8. We have taken advantage of some of the new features that Windows Phone 8 has to offer and provided you with an easy to use programming model by supporting the new Task<T> async pattern and dynamic keyword. With this you can easily move your code between your Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 application.

private async void OnLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs routedEventArgs)
        {
            var authClient = new LiveAuthClient("ClientID");
            LiveLoginResult loginResult = await authClient.LoginAsync(new string[] { "wl.skydrive" });
            if (loginResult.Status != LiveConnectSessionStatus.Connected)
            {
                return ;
            }

            var connectClient = new LiveConnectClient(loginResult.Session);
            LiveOperationResult operationResult = await connectClient.GetAsync("me/skydrive/files");
            dynamic data = operationResult.Result["data"];

            foreach (dynamic file in data)
            {
               //process the result 
            }
        }

Getting the SDKs

You can download the Windows Phone and the .NET SDKs from http://dev.live.com/downloads or via NuGet in your Visual Studio project. You can find more information about Live Connect at our dev portal.

Build Windows

The last few weeks have been great for Microsoft with the launch of Windows 8, Surface and Windows Phone 8. At the //build conference here in Redmond, we had some great sessions where we got to talk about Microsoft account and SkyDrive APIs. The sessions and slides are now available at the Build Windows site. Be sure to check it out and learn about the various types of applications you can create by simply leveraging Microsoft account and SkyDrive.

Demo code for the SkyDrive talk can be found at http://sdrv.ms/VMnPpY.

As always—if you have any questions, either post them in the comments here or on our developer forums, where members of our team are always available.

Omar Shahine,

Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com

SkyDrive usage has doubled in the last 6 months, now you can select what to sync

Mike Torres — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:34:00 GMT

About 6 months ago, we released the first sync apps for SkyDrive making it easy to view and manage your personal SkyDrive from the File Explorer in Windows and Finder in OS X. We’re excited to announce that since then, you have put more and more of your files into your own SkyDrive and in the last 6 months, you’ve doubled the amount of SkyDrive storage being used.

We’re both humbled and excited by this pace of growth. While many of you have told us that you love being able to have everything in one place and access it from anywhere, you’ve also said that sometimes you want to be more selective with the files you sync to each device. So today, we’re releasing an update to our sync apps that includes the ability to select what you sync along with the ability to share files and folders right from the Windows File Explorer. In addition, we’ve just released a few updates to the SkyDrive apps for Windows Phone and Android improving how you access your SkyDrive across different devices. Between these updates and the way SkyDrive comes with Windows 8 and the new Office, we’re excited to see how fast your SkyDrive storage usage will grow in the next 6 months.

Select what to sync

With today’s release, you can now select which folders from SkyDrive are synced – making it easier to use SkyDrive with laptops or tablets with small drives. You’re in control. If you’d like to keep all your photos and documents in SkyDrive but only sync a folder of your most important documents to your laptop, you can do that – even if your desktop is syncing the full set. You can choose specific sub-folders to sync as well; you aren’t limited to your primary SkyDrive folders.

This feature is super simple to set up. You can set it up when you first install SkyDrive on your PC or Mac or later, when you’re already running SkyDrive. Check out our video describing the feature:

We know people have been anxiously awaiting this feature so we hope you enjoy it!

Share more easily

SkyDrive isn’t just a “drive in the sky”, it’s also a great way to share folders, documents, and photos with people around the world. Sharing via email or by posting links to sites like Twitter and Facebook is simple with SkyDrive, and we wanted to make sure that ability was also available directly from File Explorer.

Now, whenever you’re ready to share a file or folder, you can just right-click it and select Share. Your default browser will open right to SkyDrive.com and you can share your folder or file right from there. You can also view the file itself right on SkyDrive.com, which works great for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files with the Office Web Apps.

Updates to SkyDrive apps for Windows Phone 8 and Android devices

A few days ago, just in time for the U.S. launch of Windows Phone 8, we released a fully optimized SkyDrive app for Windows Phone 8. In addition to all-around performance improvements and some visual updates to better fit Windows Phone 8, you can now search your SkyDrive files and folders and control photo upload and download size. Check it out:

SkyDrive for Android also added several new features in addition to performance improvements:

Upload all file types from SD card
Rename SkyDrive folders & files
Custom sort orders for every view

Get started now

If you’ve already installed the SkyDrive sync app for Windows, you don’t need to do much other than sit back and wait a bit. We are rolling the update out now and your SkyDrive desktop apps will automatically update, letting you know when the new app is running with a simple notification.

We expect the update to be available to everyone within 48 hours. If you’re anxious and want it now, you can find links to download updates for Windows, Windows Phone, Mac, and Android from http://apps.live.com/skydrive.

We hope everyone enjoys these updates. We’re excited to see how you use SkyDrive and are looking forward to continuing to bring the best of the cloud to your devices.

Mike Torres
Group Program Manager, SkyDrive apps

Excel surveys now available

Omar Shahine — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 19:00:00 GMT

Today we are launching Excel surveys on SkyDrive. Excel surveys are a great way to collect info from your friends and family to better organize and plan activities. Now, whether you need to plan a carpool, organize a potluck dinner, or get your kickball team together, you can do it right from SkyDrive with an Excel survey.

Excel surveys will be rolling out over the next 24 hours in the US, and worldwide in the near future, so if you don’t see them in your SkyDrive yet, you will soon.

Creating a survey is really easy. Click the Create button in SkyDrive, and then choose Excel survey.

You can then enter in the name of your survey and add questions.

Once you're finished entering your questions, you can share the survey or save it and preview how it will look.

When you go back to your SkyDrive, you'll see your surveys alongside the rest of your files.

Once you’ve created a survey, you can do all of the things that you've come to expect from SkyDrive, like sharing, viewing, and editing.

Then when you share the survey, you can shorten the URL and send it to anyone that you want to collect info from.

When the recipient clicks the survey link, they'll be able to complete the survey. Here’s how that looks:

As the creator of the survey, you can view all of the results in Excel and do neat things like embed the results in a webpage, or create and share a chart or pivot table of the results.

A survey is a great way to manage an RSVP list for a holiday party, coordinate a vacation with family, or just do some research. We hope you find this feature helpful for the holiday season, and for many years to come!

Omar Shahine
Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com

Update: This blog post was updated on Nov. 16 to clarify availability.

Updated Office Web Apps on SkyDrive

Omar Shahine — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:25:57 GMT

Since we first introduced the Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, you’ve been able to easily access and edit your Office documents right in the browser. But we knew there was more to improve, especially around richer editing and formatting capabilities, consistent co-authoring with others, and better support for touch-based devices.

After working hard on these areas, we launched the Office Web App Preview in July and more than 750,000 of you opted to try out the latest updates. So a huge thank you goes out to all of the participants – the feedback and data that we were able to gather was invaluable to making sure that the latest version of the Web Apps was ready for prime time. And without further ado, we are announcing today that the Office Web App Preview is over, and we’ve rolled out the latest updates to all SkyDrive and Outlook.com users!

A few of the improvements that are now available:

Co-authoring in all the web apps

One of the great advantages of storing your documents in SkyDrive is that it simplifies sharing and the collaborative process, because everyone gets to work on the same version of the document. There’s no need to send email attachments back and forth, or spend time merging comments and edits. The Word, Excel, and OneNote Web Apps have supported the ability to co-author with others for a while, and now we’ve added co-authoring for PowerPoint .

Performance

Just as important as features that you can physically see and use are things like how fast something feels. We’re always looking for ways to make viewing and editing your documents in the web apps as snappy as possible, so you spend less time waiting and get things done faster. Compared to the previous version of the web apps, documents now render about 30% faster with the latest updates!

Touch support

Part of the promise of SkyDrive is that your files are available anywhere you go, and that especially means no matter what kind of device you’re on. The Office Web Apps are now touch-friendly, and support many of the touch gestures, such as pinching, swiping, holding, and dragging. Selecting text is easy and intuitive, and a quick tap on the selected area brings up context options to make editing a snap.

You can read a ton more about all of the improvements over at the Office Next blog.

Once again, a big thank you to the Office Web Apps Preview participants, and we hope you all enjoy the latest updates!

Happy editing,

The Office Web App and SkyDrive teams

New SkyDrive recycle bin available today and Excel surveys coming soon

Omar Shahine — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:00:00 GMT

We’ve focused on making SkyDrive the most versatile personal cloud storage service available—spanning file, app, and device clouds. So we appreciate it when reviewers recognize our progress, as with the recent PC Magazine award of Editor’s Choice in cloud storage to SkyDrive.

But our primary measure of success is whether key audiences, like students, use and love SkyDrive. That’s why we sponsored a student collaboration challenge (that received great submissions) and why we shared tips for students to make SkyDrive their cloud backpack. We’re happy to see students increasingly choose SkyDrive and share their stories.

Today, we’re excited to release a new recycle bin feature on SkyDrive.com and to tell you about a feature (Excel surveys) we’ll release in the coming weeks. Note: Due to how we release updates, the recycle bin feature may take up to 24 hours to appear in your SkyDrive. The Excel survey feature lets you easily create online surveys and analyze results using the free Excel Web App or Excel on your desktop. We hope these two new features will further enhance SkyDrive for students and others.

Recycle bin

SkyDrive already keeps previous versions of your Office documents automatically. But students, in particular, have asked for a way to recover any file—even those deleted by accident, by someone else, during a group project. So, we’ve added a recycle bin to SkyDrive.

I’m going to start by showing you how we’ve made deleting files better. Prior to this release, when you deleted anything in SkyDrive you had to acknowledge and dismiss a warning dialog. This extra step got in the way of making delete as fast as it should be. Now, when you delete an item, we simply tell you that we did it and allow you to “undo” your action:

We think this will make deleting even faster and easier. However, if you have deleted something already, from any SkyDrive app, we’re now giving you a recycle bin that will work very similarly to what you’re used to on your PC. You can get to the recycle bin from a link in the bottom left side of SkyDrive.

From there you can browse your recycle bin in thumbnail or details view.

It’s easy to select items to restore back to their original location, as well as see when the item was deleted. And file and folder selection works just like it does in the rest of SkyDrive.

Items in the recycle bin do not count against your SkyDrive storage limit. We save all items you delete in the recycle bin for at least 3 days. If the content in your recycle bin gets large enough to exceed 10% of your storage limit (which will be pretty rare), we’ll start to delete the oldest content (after it’s been there 3 days), and will permanently remove items from the recycle bin after they have been there for 30 days (and not restored).

Right now, the recycle bin feature is available from SkyDrive.com, and over time we expect the recycle bin experience to make its way to other SkyDrive experiences too.

Excel surveys

We’re also putting the final touches on adding Excel surveys to SkyDrive. Like the recycle bin, this has been a top request from students in particular, as they’re great for getting suggestions for a group project or party, collecting feedback or research results, running a competition, and much more. And unlike competing services, you can easily use the power of Excel Web App, Excel for Windows, or Excel for Mac to sort, analyze, or chart the results of your survey.

When these are released, all you will have to do is select “Excel survey” from the Create menu:

Then you’ll proceed through a set of steps to create the survey and each question has several options for different types of response that you want:

When you’re done, it takes just one click to share this survey with others and start collecting responses. We’re putting this through some final tweaks, and you should expect to see Excel surveys show up in your SkyDrive soon. We’ll let you know once it’s done.

We hope you like the recycle bin and upcoming Excel surveys. Let us know what you think.

-Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com

Attachments.me connecting SkyDrive with Gmail and tips for other SkyDrive developers

Dare Obasanjo — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:00:11 GMT

Over the past few months we’ve seen great apps integrate with SkyDrive, for example document readers like GoodReader or Bookviser and productivity apps like Podio or RightSignature. But we also heard that developers wanted greater flexibility in file types supported by SkyDrive. And as more and more developers have been building Windows 8 apps, they’ve appreciated the Windows 8 file picker integration with SkyDrive and wanted us to similarly make it simple to integrate a SkyDrive file picker with their websites.

Based on this feedback, we recently released an update for the SkyDrive developer experience to

Remove all API restrictions related to photo resolution and content types
Provide a new, easy-to-use file picker API for websites (similar to our file picker for Windows 8 apps)

We’re seeing many apps take advantage of these updates to unlock new possibilities. Today, we’re happy to share a very exciting new experience—Attachments.me is using these new updates to connect SkyDrive with Gmail. Using Attachments.me’s Chrome extension, you can now send and access SkyDrive files directly in Gmail. Additionally, you can create rules to automatically save certain attachments to SkyDrive (e.g. “whenever John Doe sends me an attachment, save it to my “Files from John” folder in SkyDrive). We think this will be a pretty compelling integration for people that want to use SkyDrive but are still using Gmail.

SkyDrive integration in Gmail, via Attachments.me

And then just this past weekend at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, there were numerous teams building apps using the SkyDrive APIs. One standout was Aniden’s David Chien, who integrated SkyDrive into his Windows 8 app, Cliphoarder. In an interesting use of the snap functionality in Windows 8, Cliphoarder allows you to clip text and images out of any website and save them to your SkyDrive automatically. The app isn’t available in the Windows Store quite yet, but here’s a sneak peek at what David was able to make in just 24 hours.

Cliphoarder app

It’s innovative scenarios like these that showcase the power of SkyDrive and keep pushing us and our partners to continue to find more ways to give you the world’s most versatile cloud storage service.

Today, we also wanted to provide more details on how any developer can take advantage of these updates to:

Upload full resolution pictures from your app
Use SkyDrive to backup app data
Enable any web app with personal cloud storage using our new file picker

Uploading full-resolution pictures

By default, if an uploaded photo is larger than 2048 × 2048 pixels in size, SkyDrive automatically tries to shrink it so that it fits within this 2048 × 2048 pixel size constraint. We think that provides a good default balance between a high quality picture but also not using up tons of storage. But there are times you really want the full resolution, and so you override this behavior when using the SkyDrive REST API. To do this, apps should set the downsize_photo_uploads query-string parameter to false—for example, /FOLDER_ID/files?downsize_photo_uploads=false for POST or /FOLDER_ID/files/FILENAME?downsize_photo_uploads=false for PUT.

The code excerpts below show how to upload a photo that will not be downsized, using JavaScript in a web application and C# in a Windows Store app.

JavaScript (Web)

function uploadFile() {
    WL.login({
        scope: "wl.skydrive_update"
    }).then(
        function (response) {
            WL.upload({
                path: folder_id + "?downsize_photo_uploads=false",
                element: "file",
                overwrite: "rename"
            }).then(
                function (response) {
                    document.getElementById("info").innerText =
                        "File uploaded.";
                },
                function (responseFailed) {
                    document.getElementById("info").innerText =
                        "Error uploading file: " + responseFailed.error.message;
                }
            );                    
        },
        function (responseFailed) {
            document.getElementById("info").innerText =
                "Error signing in: " + responseFailed.error.message;
        }
    );
}

C# (Windows 8)

private System.Threading.CancellationTokenSource ctsUpload;

private async void btnUploadFile_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    try
    {
        var picker = new Windows.Storage.Pickers.FileOpenPicker();
        picker.ViewMode = Windows.Storage.Pickers.PickerViewMode.Thumbnail;
        picker.SuggestedStartLocation = Windows.Storage.Pickers.PickerLocationId.PicturesLibrary;
        picker.FileTypeFilter.Add("*");
        Windows.Storage.StorageFile file = await picker.PickSingleFileAsync();
        if (file != null)
        {
            this.progressBar.Value = 0;
            var progressHandler = new Progress<LiveOperationProgress>(
                (progress) => { this.progressBar.Value = progress.ProgressPercentage; });
            this.ctsUpload = new System.Threading.CancellationTokenSource();
            LiveConnectClient liveClient = new LiveConnectClient(this.session);
            await liveClient.BackgroundUploadAsync("folder.8c8ce076ca27823f.8C8CE076CA27823F!134"+ "?downsize_photo_uploads=false" ,
                "MyUploadedPicture.jpg", file, true, this.ctsUpload.Token, progressHandler);
            this.infoTextBlock.Text = "Upload completed.";
        }
    }
    catch (System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException)
    {
        this.infoTextBlock.Text = "Upload cancelled.";
    }
    catch (LiveConnectException exception)
    {
        this.infoTextBlock.Text = "Error uploading file: " + exception.Message;
    }
}

private void btnCancelUpload_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    if (this.ctsUpload != null)
    {
        this.ctsUpload.Cancel();
    }
}

For more examples of how to upload photos to SkyDrive from your favorite platform, please see our documentation.

Best practices for storing app data in SkyDrive

With our most recent release, there’s no longer any restriction on the types of files that can be uploaded to SkyDrive via our API. As part of this change, we’ve also changed our policies to allow apps to back up a user’s data to SkyDrive.

One question that has since come up is how apps should store data so that app backups don’t end up cluttering up a user’s SkyDrive. Our recommendation is that apps should store data using the following folder hierarchy:

[SkyDrive root]
 '- ApplicationData
  '- [Application Name] ([Publisher Name or Company Name])
e.g. Photosky (Contoso)

The application name should be provided as a human readable name that the end user understands, while the publisher name should be included in parenthesis in the folder name to disambiguate your app from another app that may have the same name.

The SkyDrive file picker for web apps

Shortly after we launched the SkyDrive API, we began to get feedback from web developers about how difficult it was to actually integrate opening or saving files to SkyDrive. And at the same time, developers were finding this very easy when building Windows 8 apps. The key problem was that app developers would need to re-implement the SkyDrive file picker to create a great experience when accessing or saving files to SkyDrive.

To address this feedback we’ve created a SkyDrive file picker for web apps. The SkyDrive file picker makes it easy easy to give your website the ability to open and save files to SkyDrive with just a few lines of JavaScript code.

Instantiating the SkyDrive file picker is done using either the WL.ui or WL.fileDialog methods from the JavaScript library, depending on whether your app will use the standard SkyDrive file picker button shown below or whether it will launch the file picker based on a custom action on your website (such as the user clicking a specific link or button).

Standard SkyDrive file picker buttons

The following code excerpt shows how to create a SkyDrive file picker button that can be used to open files from SkyDrive which can then be processed by your app.

<div id="downloadFile_div">SkyDrive open button to appear here</div>

WL.ui({
    name: "skydrivepicker",
    element: "downloadFile_div",
    mode: "open",
    select: "multi",
    onselected: onDownloadFileCompleted,
    onerror: onDownloadFileError
});

function onDownloadFileCompleted(response) {
    var msg = "";
    // For each folder selected...
    if (response.data.folders.length > 0) {
        for (folder = 0; folder < response.data.folders.length; folder++) {
            // Use folder IDs to iterate through child folders and files as needed.
            msg += "\n" + response.data.folders[folder].id;
        }
    }
    // For each file selected...
    if (response.data.files.length > 0) {
        for (file = 0; file < response.data.files.length; file++) {
            // Use file IDs to iterate through files as needed.
            msg += "\n" + response.data.files[file].id;
        }
    }
    document.getElementById("info").innerText =
        "Selected folders/files:" + msg;
};

function onDownloadFileError(responseFailed) {
    document.getElementById("info").innerText =
        "Error getting folder/file info: " + responseFailed.error.message;
}

When the user clicks the SkyDrive file picker button that results from the above code, they will see the following dialog box and can then choose which file they want to share with your web app:

SkyDrive file picker, Open dialog box

Creating a file picker that enables the user to save a file to SkyDrive is similarly straightforward. The following code sample shows how to create a standard HTML button which will launch the Save dialog when clicked:

<form>
    <input id="file" name="file" type="file" />
</form>

<button onclick="uploadFile_fileDialog()">Save file with SkyDrive file picker (calling WL.filedialog)</button>



function uploadFile_fileDialog() {
    WL.fileDialog({
        mode: "save"
    }).then(
        function (response) {
            WL.upload({
                path: response.data.folders[0].id,
                element: "file",
                overwrite: "rename"
            }).then(
                function (response) {
                    document.getElementById("info").innerText =
                        "File uploaded.";
                },
                function (responseFailed) {
                    document.getElementById("info").innerText =
                        "Error uploading file: " + responseFailed.error.message;
                }
            );
        },
        function (responseFailed) {
            document.getElementById("info").innerText =
                "Error getting folder info: " + responseFailed.error.message;
        }
    );  
}

SkyDrive file picker, Save dialog box

You can try out the SkyDrive file picker by visiting our interactive SDK.

Learn more at TechCrunch Disrupt

To recap, we’ve lifted restrictions on uploading full resolution images and non-document file types. You can learn more about the SkyDrive API by visiting dev.live.com. We’ve also introduced a SkyDrive file picker for web apps, which you can add to your site by incorporating our JavaScript API and try out in our interactive SDK.

If you’d like to talk to us in person about adding SkyDrive to your website or app, we’ll be at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco this week. We’ll be showing off SkyDrive and talking about APIs.

As always—if you have any questions, either post them in the comments here or on our developer forums, where members of our team are always available.

Dare Obasanjo,

Lead Program Manager, Live Connect Platform

SkyDrive for Android phones now available

Mike Torres — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:54:47 GMT

A few weeks ago we announced our intention to release an official SkyDrive app for Android phones. Today we’re excited to announce that the app is now available for download. We want to ensure that you’re able to have your files accessible across the various devices you use—so it’s important that we continue to extend the SkyDrive experience to the devices you use every day. This new app for Android is similar to our mobile apps for Windows Phone and iOS and is a key part of making sure your SkyDrive files are accessible and shareable from all your devices.

In building the new SkyDrive app for Android, we wanted to ensure we kept the same intuitive design of all SkyDrive experiences while also making use of Android design patterns and conventional interactions, so this feels natural for people with Android phones. In this release, SkyDrive is available for Android phones with access to Google Play. The new app is designed to work best with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)—though it’s also fully functional on Android 2.3 and above.

Here are some examples of how it looks:

And here is a more detailed list of some of the main features of SkyDrive for Android:

Access your SkyDrive—documents, photos, and other files, plus the files other people have shared with you.
View recently used documents.
Choose multiple photos or videos to upload from your phone.
Share your files and photos—send a link in email or in another app.
Open your SkyDrive files from other Android apps.
Easily manage your files—delete or create new folders.

Get the SkyDrive app for Android now—we’re excited to hear what you think.

-- Mike Torres
Group Program Manager, SkyDrive Apps