Microsoft Improves Integration Between Outlook Web App and OneDrive for Business

Microsoft has updated its Outlook Web App for Office 365 commercial customers and improved how you can share files using OneDrive for Business.

This update builds on functionality Microsoft added in October 2010, when it added “Attachments or OneDrive for Business files” to the Insert menu on emails, and a “Share with OneDrive” option so that you could virtually attach files that were really stored in OneDrive for Business.

This week’s update adds the following:

Save to OneDrive for Business. When you receive one or more attachments in an email message, you can now save them directly to your Email attachments folder in OneDrive for Business (Save to OneDrive or Save All to OneDrive). From there, you can move them to different locations, collaborate on them with others, or do any other standard OneDrive-type tasks.

Easier sharing from OneDrive for Business. Now, when you try to send a file via Outlook Web App that is too large for your organization’s message size limit, the web app will automatically gray out the Send as Attachment option. This means you can only share the file with OneDrive for Business. (Right now the size limit is 200 MB, but Microsoft is raising that to 2GB in the next month or so. You can still upload larger files up to 2 GB in size directly in OneDrive for Business.)

These changes apply to all Office 365 customers with plans that include Exchange Online and OneDrive for Business, including commercial, government and academic plans. (And if you’re using consumer Outlook.com and OneDrive, no worries, this already works there.)