Microsoft’s OneDrive, formerly known as SkyDrive, is one of the easiest ways out there to quickly save your pictures to the cloud and share with others. Now that Microsoft has been offering at least 15 GB or up to 25 GB of free space on OneDrive, many users are using this cloud storage service to upload and share files and pictures.
Earlier this week, Microsoft even removed the upload file size limit so that users can upload files larger than 2GB. In other words, before this, OneDrive wouldn’t allow users to upload files larger than 2 GB. One had to split a file larger than 2 GB into multiple files to be able to upload files to OneDrive.
If you have been using OneDrive to upload your files and share them with your family and friends, you probably already know how to download individual files or albums uploaded or shared on OneDrive. And if in case, you aren’t sure how to download yours or shared files/albums by others, you can simply follow the given below instructions.
As you likely know, those who have been using the official OneDrive desktop client can easily download all files without having to follow this procedure. However, this guide is for those who want to download files, photos or albums from SkyDrive without installing the desktop client.
Download files from Microsoft OneDrive
Step 1: Visit this page of OneDrive and sign into your account.
Step 2: Right-click on the file or album that you would like to download and then click the Download option to begin downloading the file. Depending on the file or album size, the download procedure might take seconds to hours.
How to add OneDrive to Windows Send To menu to quickly upload files and how to automatically backup My Documents folder to OneDrive guides might also interest you.
Fricker says
What works for me…open File Explorer, go to whatever you’re looking for in OneDrive (photos, docs), right click and Copy it, then open My PC and whatever folder you want, then Paste it. Voila. Photos take a while to copy, docs not as long. I’d go the safe route with this rather than Cut and Paste as I’ve read that if you delete it from OD it’s gone for good.
Jernej R. says
Open file explorer and you will see OneDrive Icon like another hard drive on left hand side. There you can copy files to any location on your computer, both direction (to OneDrive or from OneDrive)
Jannette says
Completely frustrated with OneDrive, can’t download because I don’t have the option. The first steps of my children are trapped in OneDrive and I really don’t want to lose them. All the posts I’ve read don’t have an answer either, I’ll try the make available offline option with my fingers crossed
Fritz Jörn says
A friend sent me pictures, apparently via OneDrive. When I click to download a picture, I’m offered an exe (!) file. I must say that I myself have no OneDrive account, and don’t want to have one either. How do I get the pictures, straightforward? With Dropbox and other “file parking systmes” I never had any such problems.
Rule#16 says
If you use the classic onedrive mode download works for an individual file.
sunil says
I used internet explorer and open upload dialog box. In the popup there is a link to open files in file explorer. From file explorer we can copy our file and paste them in local drive
Kelly Dengler says
I paid for extra storage, hoping this would give me more options for OneDrive. Nope. I had to open folders one by one and download one by one. This is insanity. I really don’t want to move to Apple, but this is nuts.
Furthermore, I am only having to do this because I tried to relocate my Documents folder to my D drive because I now have limited storage on my C drive because of SSD. After changing the location, ALL of my documents disappeared. Just gone, not in Recycle Bin, not in cache, just GONE.
Microsoft has become a constant source of frustration.
Eric says
No download button as many others have stated. Really unfortunate, guess I will stop using One Drive
Lilla says
Why does my pictures on Hotmail email now only download on One Drive? Previously I had the option , now I do not. Please explain. I do not want to share my pictures.
Greg says
I have tried to download photos on my one drive to a hard drive…..I see no option to do so. I don’t want to start paying for excessive space on one drive and I would like to clean it up….can this reasonable request be done?
Eljo says
I attempted to download from onedrive a shared folder and it downloads a zip file that, when I click to open, says (the file is empty and the path does not exist”. WTF? I’ve tried it multiple different ways. Any suggestions?
Mark H says
Okay, I’ll amend my post. I have found that opening OneDrive through internet explorer allows you to select and easily download docs and pics. So what is up with opening OneDrive via the app on my computer? There is no download from there and it runs completely different than it does on IE. The question remains, How do you download pics from OneDrive in the app without having to go to IE?
Mark H says
One drive does not let you “Download” by right clicking on a photo. Where is the download option or button. There is nothing across the screen at the bottom that allows for downloading. There are icons for Delete, Copy, Cut, Rename, Make Offline, Open with, Share, Paste, New Folder and …More. There is nothing in More that allows for download either. No other pop ups around the screen for download. Can someone tell me how to do a simple download of one or a few pictures? Thanks!!!
peter says
I downloaded my files from Onedrive using Google Chrome and they turned out as DOWNLOAD files which I can not open. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how to open them.
Summer says
I have put-off fully using Onedrive b/c it is such a pain. My guess is that once you select a folder (that ultimately you want to download), you first have to choose “make available offline.” Then when you download the folder (which I assume to your hard drive), where is it appearing on your computer? Sadly, the folder does not appear where everything else does, which is under the ‘download’ folder (which would make sense to me). So, I’m thwarted. Secondly, how do I change the view of the files to ‘details’ (which I have in Windows Explorer)? You’d think Microsoft would offer the same features/options w/ Onedrive, but that does not seem to be the case. Onedrive is 100-percent frustrating.
cl says
I’m using Windows 7 and Chrome as the web browser. There is no Download option when I right-click on a folder or on multiple files… Really difficult to use compared to other file sharing systems.
nick says
I attempted to download from onedrive a folder of 600 pictures onto a friends computer (my onedrive is not downloaded on their computer) and it downloads a zip file that, when I click to open, says (the file is empty and the path does not exist”. WTF? I’ve tried it multiple different ways. Any suggestions?