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Chances are you've been spending more time on your work or personal computer this year due to the pandemic, so you might be in need of some basic tools like Microsoft 365. Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft 365 is a service that adds more features to the traditional office software. But if you don't want to shell out the money, there are a few ways you can get the service and its popular apps for free.

Microsoft 365 has all the familiar Office apps and more in one place. Work, learn, collaborate, connect, and create with Microsoft 365. Get help for the account you use with Microsoft, including info for setting it up and protecting it and using it to manage your services and subscriptions.

Microsoft's suite of productivity software -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams , OneDrive and SharePoint -- typically costs $150 for a one-time installation (as Office 365), or between $70 and $100 every year for subscription service access across devices and family members (as Microsoft 365). Microsoft is also planning to release a new standalone version of Microsoft Office for both Windows and Mac -- for a flat price, no subscription required -- at some point later this year.

• Office 365is a line of subscriptionservices offered by Microsoftas part of the Microsoft Officeproduct line.
• MSN - Microsoft News.
• Expand your Outlook. We've developed a suite of premium Outlook features for people with advanced email and calendar needs. A Microsoft 365 subscription offers an ad-free interface, custom domains, enhanced security options, the full desktop version of Office, and 1 TB of cloud storage.

Use the browser-based version of the Microsoft Word app for free.

Read more:How to download Windows 10 for free, now that Windows 7 is dead

Here are the versions of Office 365, Microsoft 365 and their apps that you can find online for free right now.

If you're a student or a teacher

If you're a student, teacher or faculty member with a school email address, you are likely eligible to get access to Office 365 for free through Microsoft -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Microsoft Teams and additional classroom tools.

All you have to do is enter your school email address on this page on Microsoft's website: Get started with Office 365 for free. In many cases, you'll be instantly granted access thanks to an automated verification process. If you attend an institution that needs to be verified, it might take up to a month to confirm your eligibility.

Recent graduates who want to stick with Office 365 can also get Office 365 Personal for $12 for 12 months, with a valid school email address.

If you're anyone else

Anyone can get a one-month free trial of Microsoft 365 to try it out. However, it does require you to enter a credit card, and if you don't cancel before the month is up, you'll be charged $100 for a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Family (formerly called Office 365 Home).

The good news is, if you don't need the full suite of Microsoft 365 tools, you can access a number of its apps online for free -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar and Skype . Here's how to get them:

• Go to Office.com.
• Login to your Microsoft account (or create one for free). If you already have a Windows, Skype or Xbox login, you have an active Microsoft account.
• Select the app you want to use, and save your work in the cloud with OneDrive.

Read more at TechRepublic:Microsoft 365: A cheat sheet

Is there a catch for the free version?

You may be saying, wait a minute -- if I can get all of those apps for free, why pay for Microsoft 365 in the first place? The reason is that the functionality of these apps is limited: They only run through your web browser, and you can't use them if you aren't online. There are also fewer features than the full Microsoft 365 versions.

There are still a number of benefits, however, including the ability to share links to your work and collaborate in real time, similar to G Suite tools. If you're looking for basic versions of each of these apps, the free version should work well for you.

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There are a lot of cloud services. It’s hard to find our way among all of them and identify the option that best suits our needs. Especially when the same type of service is presented to us in different ways, under different names and from different providers. A case in point is cloud storage. It’s also known as online storage, online drive, shared drive, file server, FTP, server, box… and this list goes on.

Maybe you’ve heard about OneDrive. Or maybe you’re already using it. What about OneDrive for Business? Do you know Microsoft 365 and Office 365? And, do you understand the difference between them?

Start your adventure with Sherweb by exploring our Partner Guide

What are OneDrive and OneDrive for Business?

The short version is: OneDrive is intended for personal storage. OneDrive for Business, on the other hand, is one part of Office 365 (or SharePoint Server). It gives you a place in the cloud where you can store, share, and sync all work files. It can be a standalone product but is most often included in an Office or Microsoft 365 subscription, which gives you an extensive set of tools for your workspace.

Let’s dig further into some more details about each of these products.

OneDrive

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OneDrive (previously known as SkyDrive) is a free storage space provided by Microsoft. You just have to type onedrive.com in your browser to find it.

To access it, you need a Windows Live ID which can be your Xbox Live account, your Outlook.com email account (previously Hotmail.com), your Skype account (the former MSN Messenger ID), or the account you used to sync your old Zune device. This Microsoft account is basically an email address and a password. That’s all.

With OneDrive, you get 5GB of free storage (15GB if you signed up before February 2016) that you can use to store any kind of file, including photos, video and documents. OneDrive organizes your files by type for you, so it’s easy to find what you need. You can access your files from a PC or MAC or your mobile devices (Android, iOS, Windows Phone and even BlackBerry 10).

OneDrive is perfect to store your personal files. You can also share them with friends, family or even colleagues.

This version may be free, but you still get .

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• Unexpected options are available through the web browser. You can browse any connected PC you’ve set your OneDrive account on, so you can even access files stored on the PC that are not saved to OneDrive.
• Windows 8.1 and later versions plus all Office applications will allow you to save files directly to OneDrive as a built-in feature; the same thing Outlook.com does for attachments.
• File versioning will help you retrieve previous versions of your documents.
• You can set OneDrive to automatically back up your camera files (photos and videos).
• You can download the mobile and desktop apps as an alternative to using a web browser. The integration with Xbox will help you watch your personal images and videos saved on OneDrive directly on your TV.

You can also set two-factor authentication (2FA), which involves receiving a code on your mobile phone whenever you need to access it. Or, you can activate PIN or fingerprint identification for more security on the mobile app.

OneDrive can basically be compared to Dropbox, Box or Google Drive for your personal files.

OneDrive for Business

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As its name indicates, OneDrive for Business is designed for organizations. It allows a company to provide cloud storage to its employees and manage its usage from a central location.

Talking about OneDrive for Business leads us to another Microsoft product: SharePoint. Why? Because when SharePoint 2013 was released, OneDrive for Business was part of a whole streamlined experience. Its role was to synchronize SharePoint document libraries across different user devices.

For those who don’t know, SharePoint is a collaboration platform for organizations. It provides a corporate website where teams and departments can create their own workspaces to store, co-author and share documents or any other professional files. Each user automatically gets a “My Site” library in SharePoint, which is like a home drive or an equivalent of the “My Documents” on their corporate PC. Depending on the server edition it runs on, SharePoint can allow the integration of different applications so it can be used as a unique platform for the company. SharePoint is either installed on-premises or hosted in the cloud. It’s not a free product, so companies have to buy licenses to run it. In other words, using OneDrive for Business involves some cost.

It offers advanced features compared with those available with the free version of OneDrive. The storage quota limit depends on the SharePoint platform your company uses. There is a limit in the number of files you can sync with OneDrive for Business: 5,000 for a regular document library and 20,000 for the “My Site” library. Of course syncing files will help you use them offline on your devices. File versioning is enhanced for OneDrive for Business, as it involves the notion of minor and major versions. This is a very important feature in co-authoring.

Can OneDrive for Business be used without SharePoint? The answer is yes. Companies can choose to provide storage space for their employees for document backup or as a mobility feature. Microsoft offers that service as a paid cloud service that provides 50GB of space per user.

Office and Microsoft 365

Office 365 Download

As we just mentioned, OneDrive for Business is also provided as a standalone cloud service. But if you need many cloud services, paying for standalone services is not the best way to manage your budget. This is where Microsoft and Office 365 come in.

Office and Microsoft 365 are a set of cloud services available for personal, education or business activities. The Business and Enterprise plans give you a whole suite of productivity products for your organization. With icrosoft 365, you get the familiar Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and Publisher) plus the following: 50GB of Exchange Online mailbox per user, Skype for Business for corporate instant messaging, audio/video calls and web conferences, Yammer as a corporate social network, SharePoint for file management, and 1TB of OneDrive for Business storage per user. Each plan will give you some or all services in this list, plus other cloud services. You can use one single license on up to 5 PCs, 5 MACs and 5 mobile devices!

With Office 365, OneDrive for Business is provided mostly for SharePoint document library sync. In plans where SharePoint is not included, it can be used as simple file storage.

Have we cleared things up for you? I hope so. Let’s sum it up! OneDrive is a good fit for storing your personal documents, pictures and videos in the cloud, so you can access them everywhere you go and also share them with friends, family and colleagues. OneDrive for Business is used with SharePoint to sync data to user devices so they can access corporate files, co-author documents with colleagues, and keep working on them while at home or on the road. Office and Microsoft 365 bundles OneDrive for Business with other top-notch services in a single offer so you can better manage your budget.