OneDrive Metro App:

If you own a Surface tablet, or any other touch device that uses Windows 8.1, you are likely already familiar with the OneDrive Metro App – it is the Windows tile app that comes preinstalled on your device.

It is there for the convenience of being able to access your OneDrive-stored files while in touch mode but is it really useful with its current feature set? Is it a winner or a complete flop?

In this post I will cover the pros and the cons of the app, as well as common settings that will help you optimize it.

Since Windows 8 came out in 2012, there have been many complaints about the OneDrive Metro App.

Why?

Because Microsoft omitted one key feature in this app: the sort function.

No, I’m not kidding. And I guess I’m diving right into the cons here.

Cons:

The OneDrive Metro app does not have a sort function – this was a huge oversight on Microsoft’s part. They created a touch OS, which is awesome, and they’ve refined it to the point that it’s really nice and usable on tablets and touch laptops but how can you have a file access app without having a sort function? Trying to upload files using OneDrive from the Metro Start screen is ridiculously difficult if you can’t sort them by date, name or any other details.

Needless to say, and as I’m sure you have guessed by now, I consider this a huge con of the app.

Pros:

• Easy access from Metro Start Screen – start screen tile, easily interfaces with Internet Explorer Metro version.
• Elegant file preview interface – nice interface with options for large and small preview.
• Touch friendly – easy to navigate and use with touch devices.

Useful Settings:

Essentially, there are two types of settings for OneDrive Metro App: Options from within the app and global OneDrive system settings. Let’s go through these one at a time:

Options within the app:

Here you can set offline access to your OneDrive files and turn syncing on and off.

• Open OneDrive Metro App
• Swipe from the right and go to Settings
• Chose Options

•  Set the options the way you want them

Global OneDrive settings:

Here you can set can set OneDrive settings for file storage, camera roll, sync, and metered connections.

• Swipe from the right and chose Settings
• Chose Change PC Settings at the bottom
• Tap OneDrive

• Select File storage – here you can buy more storage and set your documents to automatically save to OneDrive

• Tap on Camera roll – here you can chose the quality at which you upload your photos and select whether you want to automatically upload videos. Note that turning on those options will upload then in the background and could slow down your device.

• Tap on Sync settings – Here you can chose to sync your settings with OneDrive and then tell it which settings to sync, there are lots of options to chose from.

• Tap on Metered connections – this one is important. Here you can chose if you want to sync, upload, and download files from OneDrive while you are on a metered connection, such as cellular service. If you have these settings turned on, it’s possible to be charged by your provider for roaming charges.

So, to answer the question: is the OneDrive Metro App a winner or a flop? I would say it is ALMOST a winner. If Microsoft gets the sort function added to the app, it will then be perfect, until then it’s almost….

Joanna-