One of the updates for Patch Tuesday on June 10, 2014 was for Microsoft OneDrive. This update brought significant UI update for desktop users. Let’s check it out.

The new update introduces new user interface in the desktop. You can access this by clicking the OneDrive icon on your Taskbar system tray. If you don’t see it, click on the arrow button. Clicking on the OneDrive icon shows sync status and gives you the option to pause syncing and force sync. Here’s a screenshot of this in action.

You can also right-click to bring up the advanced options context menu. The menu has a link to view your storage quota and usage as well as a link to open the settings dialogue box. Take a look.

If you click the settings button, you get a new, desktop friendly, settings dialogue box.  This includes options to make all files available offline or make them online only, which will save disk space but keep the files’ metadata for on-demand access. That is, the online only option will still show the files in your OneDrive folder, and when you need to open a file, just double-click on it and the file will download and be available for use henceforth.

This dialogue box has been available from the Modern interface since March. You can access the touch-friendly version of this interface by using the settings charm from the OneDrive modern app.

Please note that you need to be signed in to your Microsoft Account in order to be able see these new features. The OneDrive icon on the taskbar is not present for local accounts. Sorry.

Thanks for Paul Thurrott for the alert.