Microsoft increases file sharing limits to 250GB on OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams to give remote working a boost

Microsoft said it worked on feedback from industries like heavy manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and media to increase the limit on sharing to 250GB.

In a major upgrade, Microsoft will now allow users to share large filed up to 250 GB into their SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive applications. (REUTERS)

As more and more companies embrace the work from home culture, employees around the world are beginning to rely on technology to fill the gaps that distancing has brought to their daily workflows. One of the most important requirements of effective office productivity is the ability to share files easily and Microsoft's latest update attempts to make that easier.

In a blog post created earlier this week, the company stated that remote work and learning had necessitated the ability to share large files - including 3D models, CAD files, video files, and data sets. It stated that it had worked on feedback from industries like heavy manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and media to improve its storage services.

In a major upgrade, Microsoft will now allow users to share large files up to 250 GB into their SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive applications. Since the change applies to all Microsoft 365 accounts, even personal users who aren't a part of any organisation will be able to upload, say a vacation archive of photos and videos to be shared, or a collection of childhood movies converted from tapes to digital files.

However, the company said that it also had to make improvements to its upload performance in order to share these larger files - files are now split into smaller ‘chunks' and then encrypted with a unique key. These are then hosted on Microsoft's Azure servers for easy access across your devices.

When you do want to share these large files, Microsoft has included a feature called differential sync - which basically only syncs the latest changes that you and your workmates make to a document or a file, so you don't have to spend time waiting to sync large files only to re-upload after a small change is made. The company says the support for 250 GB file size upload will roll out by the end of January, while the feature will completely roll out by the end of the first quarter.