Share Files Using SkyDrive (Share with Everyone)

Remember the days of emailing files to yourself?  Or remember USB keys that you'd leave at home/work/in the car?  Well, these days are now officially over thanks to Windows Live SkyDrive.  Think of the service like a USB drive in the cloud.  A USB key that you never have to remember.

Better still is that you can also share files with others.

Let's take a look at how we can share a file with everybody.

Let's log in to SkyDrive at http://skydrive.live.com

You'll notice that SkyDrive is split into Personal, Shared and Public Folders...

We are now going to chose where to upload a file.  If I want to be the only person allowed to access the file, I'd simply upload the file to the Personal folders (you can add folders if you wish to any section).

For this tutorial, I'm going to share my folder with everyone (ideal for uploading a holiday snap, for example).

Click on the Add Files button next to the Public Folder header:

You're then given the option of uploading to a new folder, or selecting and existing one.  Let's create a new one:

 

Click on Browse, and locate your file:

Tip: You can also install the drag on drop application if you want to upload multiple files at once

Once you have added your file, click on the Upload button.

You'll see an animation as your file(s) upload, and then you will see your file appear, as if by magic, in the folder you created earlier:

You can now share your image in a number of ways.  The easiest way is to use the options on the menu bar.  You can click Embed to get the code to put your file on a web page, if you wish.  But, probably, the most common button you'll use will be 'Send a link' which will generate a URL you can give to your family and friends so that they view your file:

If you wish to share a number of photos, you can jump back to the folder that you have uploaded your files to, and click Send a Link.  That way, your family and friends can see all the photos and files in that folder.