Microsoft Brings OneDrive’s New Look Out of Beta on Android

Redmond is bringing the new and improved design for OneDrive on Android to all users after months of testing. I reported back in September when the company initially started testing the new design with a small group of users. And today, the update is coming to all users.

The new look for OneDrive isn’t too different from the previous design, and it will look familiar if you have used OneDrive on an iPhone. Microsoft is ditching the classic hamburger design for the OneDrive app on Android, and replacing it with an iOS-style tab bar at the bottom. The change is supposed to improve discoverability of the core features of the app, along with an improved account switcher for those with multiple accounts.

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The new tab bar, as you can see below, gives you quick access to all of your files, your photos, recent files, shared files, and a “Me” section where you can access things like files that are available for downloads, settings, and notifications.

I am personally a big fan of the tab bar design on apps, especially on big phones where accessing the hamburger can be a bit difficult. But Microsoft’s reason for replacing the hamburger with the tab bar is to improve discoverability, and that actually makes a lot of sense as the previous hamburger design could potentially make it harder for brand new users to discover different features of the app. Functionality wise, nothing really changes with the latest update, so there isn’t anything to worry about.

OneDrive users with an Android phone can get the latest design right away from the Google Play Store here. 

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Conversation 14 comments

  • Trickyd

    07 December, 2017 - 12:09 pm

    <p>Thanks Mehedi, coincidentally I was just in the new Android OneDrive app before reading this article and was subliminally aware that something had changed but would not have been able to describe it! Just shows the point about discoverability , we're all so used to apps updating all the time and adapting to slight changes without really concentrating it's easy to miss stuff.</p>

  • arunphilip

    07 December, 2017 - 1:50 pm

    <p>I was one of those who had the new appearance on one of my two phones for some time now, and appreciate the move from the hamburger to tabs – it makes for switching between files &amp; photos easy, and also makes it quick and easy to check the camera upload status. </p>

  • Ekim

    Premium Member
    07 December, 2017 - 4:18 pm

    <p>I like it. Much cleaner interface!</p>

  • manzoor_e

    07 December, 2017 - 10:30 pm

    <p>So <em>now </em>they get rid of the hamburger?</p>

  • truerock

    08 December, 2017 - 4:09 pm

    <p>When Google announced they were going to down-grade search quality for web-sites not formatted for smart phones (searched from smart phones) my company designed a separate website for smart phones.</p><p><br></p><p>The design was all about the "hamburger button" and making it consistent across all web pages. The hamburger button always had administrative items such as: Help, Exit to Home, About, Contact Us, etc. Things that every webpage needed and we made it consistent across all pages. Of course, the hamburger button items were not core functionality of the web site. The hamburger button items were about administrative functions that we wanted across the entire website on every page.</p><p><br></p><p>Eliminating the "hamburger button" is a stupid decision typical of Microsoft's current incompetence in graphical-user-interface design.</p><p><br></p><p>Sometimes I see the opposite bad design choice of where an app puts non-administrative choices (application specific core items) in the hamburger button. This is also a bad design choice and typical of designers who do not know what they are doing.</p>

  • El Squish

    13 December, 2017 - 1:45 pm

    <p>Is anyone else unable to get a home screen shortcut to a specific folder to work on android? When I create a widget shortcut on my Pixel XL homescreen to open a specific folder, instead it opens to the base files screen. This worked as expected until this update and it still hasn't been fixed.</p>

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    02 April, 2018 - 12:20 pm

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