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. Using the settings menu, you can make all files globally available offline or only online - using the Explorer, you can also granularly control individual files and folders by right-clicking. With this new feature, Microsoft has created a very high-performance and successful feature that outshines other concepts such as selective synchronization of Dropbox.