If OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, OwnCloud, box.net: Regardless of the box in which you store your files - the services are almost the same. The clients available for all desktop and mobile systems, the standard unencrypted files and the sharing options differ only marginally. But the OneDrive, which has been integrated into the system since Windows 8.1, has a special feature: only files available online.
This makes it possible to access the entire database without the files taking up physical storage space. Only meta-information such as the MAC times are saved offline, so that the files feel as if they are available locally. If you open a file in Explorer that is only available online, it is automatically downloaded in the background and made permanently available offline.
Only the “Availability” column reveals where the files are really located
You can also find the files available online in the Windows search. You can use the settings menu to make all files globally available offline or only online - you can also control individual files and folders granularly using the explorer by right-clicking. With this, Microsoft has created a very performant and successful feature that overshadows other concepts such as Dropbox's selective synchronization .