So you know who can access your OneDrive files on Windows

In these times, for an increasing number of users, local storage services are important, but much less than before. This is something that is mainly due to the current and used cloud storage platforms. Here, alternatives come into play of the importance of OneDrive, Box, Google Drive and many others.

These are owned by some large companies that provide users with space on their own servers so that we can back up our own data. As you can imagine, this is a more than effective way to save space on our local hard drives in a simple and efficient way. This is why its growth, both in quantity and use, has been steadily increasing. Thus, more and more people are opting to use these platforms, especially in their free mode.

Benefits of cloud storage platforms

And it is that at the same time, we must know that, if many proposals of this type are free, we can increase this space by paying. This way, in the event that we need to store more of our own files that exceed the free allocated space, we will have to pay. But to say that it is something that is generally useful for businesses, when it comes to end users , they usually have enough with the free mode.

In addition to the many advantages that all this brings us, it should be noted that we can access all this information from any PC . Being stored externally, it will not be necessary to move from one place to another with the USB memories , external disks or CDs usual . We just need to access everything backed up from an Internet browser installed on any computer. Thus, in addition to saving local space, we gain comfort if we have to move a lot. And that's not all, but also these cloud services allow us, in a simple way, to share what we have previously recorded.

Control files saved to OneDrive

Once we know all of this, it's worth mentioning that OneDrive is one of the most widely used and well-known cloud-based services of its kind. De hecho pertenecer al gigante del software Microsoft, por lo que se complementa con otras aplicaciones y servicios de la firma, como con Windows 10. Esto nos facilita en gran medida el tratamiento con datos propios de forma online desde el sistema operativo para PC más usado of the world.

As we mentioned earlier, OneDrive is one such service that allows us to share stored files with whom we want. It is something that we can achieve both publicly and privately. But of course, you also have to keep in mind that in the event that we have a large number of files stored in OneDrive, we are not sure who we are sharing them with. And it is that over time, we can forget the content that we shared at the time, or with whom.

That's why below, we're going to show you how to find out who has access to your OneDrive files. Say that although for this we will have to install the application Windows 10 . We get this easily from the Microsoft Store itself, the official store for Windows 10.

How to discover OneDrive's shared content

While from the file explorer Windows we have the possibility to share the files stored here, we can not consult what interests us here. Let's say to share from this part of the system, without the application as such, just right click on the corresponding file or folder. So in the context menu we will see an option called Share , where we click. From there, we can indicate the emails of the users to whom we wish to send a link to access these contents. Say that in addition, we can also set an expiration date or access password. This will allow us to protect this content with an extra layer once shared.

However, in order to know what we have already shared previously, we are going to have to use the OneDrive app for Windows 10. We can download it as shown above. Once installed on the PC, it will ask us to enter the credentials of the Microsoft account with which we will be working. At this point, a window of the application herself will appear which first shows us all the content stored in our space of storage personnel OneDrive.

On the other hand, if we take a look at the left section of the main program interface, we see several options available. Among them we see a shared call, which is actually the one we are interested in in this case, so we click on it.

Manage shared OneDrive files

It will then be that the files and folders that we have shared with other users in the past will appear on the screen. In addition, it is easy to distinguish the individual files that other people have access to in the cloud, from the folders as such. On the other hand, it is also important to know that by going down in this same window we will have access to the contents which have been shared by others in the same way. In other words, the folders and files that other OneDrive users gave us access to at the time.

Therefore, to see who we shared this specific item with, just right-click on it. Here we select the Details option, which leads to a small window that opens to the right of the interface. At the top of it, we can finally see the emails of the users, along with their corresponding icon, to which at some point we send them a link that gave them access to that file or folder.

As soon as we place the mouse pointer over the icône , the email of the person having access will appear in detail. In the event that we would like it to no longer be able to see or modify this file or folder, we will just have to click on the link called Manage access . Here we can eliminate the validity of URLs, denying access to this content.